Configure a New Switch Remotely

[Ed Willson]

Today in my rush to get home I plugged in a new 2960 stack and did a little bit of very basic configuration, but no passwords were set.  I tried to telnet in and the message says that a password is required, but none is set.  I tried the SDM as I hadn't turned it off yet and it is prompting me for a user/pass but I have no idea what to put in there.  No console is available, it's a new office so no employees around either.

So am I out of luck till I hop in the car and drive a couple hundred miles?

Thanks,

     Ed

[Leo Laohoo]

You can push the config into a new appliance using SNMP. 

[Reza Sharifi]

You need to console to the switch for the first time to set the user name and password for the vty lines if you want to telnet to it.

line vty 0 15

password xxxxxx

username xxxxx

HTH

[Ed Willson]

I got that - After I returned home .  Is it possible to access the SDM without having the vty user/pass set?

I've got no snmp config on there as well, so I'm pretty sure that's out.

Thanks,

   Ed

[Leo Laohoo]

Wait a sec ...

Is there another switch that's connected to this one?  Probably with VLAN 1 enabled?

[Ed Willson]

There is indeed another switch...  I have a 3750 core stack that is configured, and the 2950 stack is plugged into that.  What are you thinking?

[Leo Laohoo · Accepted solution]

What are you thinking?

Clustering!

Pray this will work.

On the 3750 do the following commands:

conf t

cluster enable

do sh clus candidate

!!!  This will spit out some stuff (I'm doing this by memory so please bear with me).  Note the MAC address of the 2960.

cluster candidate mac <2960 MAC address>

end

So if you do the command, I hope that you'll be able to see some entries.  The command should be "sh cluster member".  If something is there, look at the first entry on the left.  If it says "1", then enter the next command "rc 1".  Hopefully, the next line will go something like "3750hostname-1".

If this is the case then, YOU ARE IN!

[Leo Laohoo]

Did it work Ed?

[Ed Willson]

Doing a bit of reading abou tthe ramifications of clustering....I have to sleep soon too.  So I'll likely try it tomorrow morning.  Worst case I'll be back on site Tuesday.  I was just hoping to leasurly configure from the comfort of home!

[Leo Laohoo]

Doing a bit of reading abou tthe ramifications of clustering

Ramifications of clustering?  There IS one?  I've used clustering for three years and I've yet to see a downside that's worthy of a network outage. 

[Ed Willson]

I learned something new and pretty sweet. 

I was able to add the other stack to the cluster and get it up and rolling.  Thanks for the help!! 

[Leo Laohoo]

I was able to add the other stack to the cluster and get it up and rolling.  Thanks for the help!!

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!

Good to see it works. 

[hobbe]

Nice save Leo !

realy sweet thing.

I´ll try to remember this !

We normally setup a pc with Serial ports, or a ethernet/serial box or a modem that we can ssh to incase we need an out of band connection to the network equipment.

[Ed Willson]

Hobbe,

    I actually have a laptop plugged in the console there with an aircard running, I figured I'd use it if I messed things up.  Looks like the VPN dropped on the laptop or something, because I couldn't connect to it when I got home!  I agree this was a pretty good feature to remember!

[Leo Laohoo]

Nice save Leo !
realy sweet thing.
I´ll try to remember this !

Thanks.