I am trying to connect a number of switches and routers to one 2950 switch

[aqusingh7]

(this is for administration purposes)Should I connect the ethernet port of the 2950 switch to the console port of the other switches/routers or will this not work? Or is it that I can only connect ethernet ports to other ethernet ports....Because I want to able to manage them without a need for a manual or automatic kvm serial port switch.

What is the best physical /logical configuration way to administer them; all at once using telnet ip/hostnames from a central switch?

I am not very experienced in this administrative design( its a cisco ccna lab for study purposes)...i access the main switch by hyperterminal directly from console. MOST OF MY WORK IS DONE REMOTELY over the internet through a REMOTE DESKTOP CONNECTION pc ... so I dont have physical access to the devices(routers/switches).

thanks

[Reza Sharifi]

You would need to connect one of the Ethernet ports on each one of your switches and routers to the 2950 and create an out of band management system. You would then put all the devices in the same subnet including the 2950 and manage them. This way, you can also open one session per device which makes configuration and troubleshooting very easy.

HTH

Reza

[aqusingh7]

hi. thanks for that piece of advice. but how would I create an out of band management system? I have never heard of this term. Do I need special software/equipment or is just how its configured?

[Ganesh Hariharan]

No need for special software and all for out of band management system,It's just system through which you can manage network devices without production LAN.The suggestion which was posted itself is called a out of band management system.

[Ganesh Hariharan]

Agreed with Reza comments,Connect on cable from 2950 switch to other device ethernet port and assign an ip address with common subnet to all device so that you can manage 2950 and other devices which are all connected.

Regards

Ganesh.H

[wandering_997]

At first, console port can not be connected with ethernet port, it won't work.

If you have to manage your devices through console port, you can use terminal server or console server.

And here is a document that introduces cisco terminal server router bundle.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/routers/ps259/product_data_sheet0900aecd800f414c.html

HTH

Wandering

[LordFlasheart]

Out-of-band management is a separate link into your network for management traffic only. Typically, this would be a dedicated management channel (e.g. DSL) to a terminal server which has connections to each network device via console connections.

Conversely, in-band management uses the same link as your data, hence if there is any problem on the data link you have lost management as well.

HTH