Paul,
This really makes my week. I love analogy and the one you have written is
totally awesome. I would like to use it if you do not mind.
Have a great weekend...
Daniel
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
Paul Werner
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2000 10:41 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Router w/o any brains
> I was wondering if anyone has come across a router where the
hostname showed up as such:
>
> Router(boot)#
>
> one of my peers has told me this means the router did not
fully boot up. Is this true? Boot mode is what he called it.
Any help is much appreciated in advance.<
While I am reasonably confident that this issue has been
addressed at least one hundred times in the archives, I am going
to take a new and innovative approach on this issue. Here
goes...
Consider your router to be like a little kid. It generally has
no intelligence until you take the time to educate it. It will
function without education, but it does so much better with a
little bit of intelligence turned on. Consider that you have
the ability to influence the intelligence of this router and
restrict whether it will remain at the fifth grade level, or
advance on to doctoral studies in network engineering 8-)
First, you will need to turn on the "proper" learning
environment. You do this by going to the proper mode on this
device and first determine if it has a brain. Sadly alas, not
all routers have brains installed! Some of them have lost their
brains along the way due to maliciousness on the part of others,
abandonment, or neglect. Sometimes, they have to get their
brains every time they wake up (it's a difficult life for a
router). If they can't find their brains, they wander aimlessly
through router life as an uneducated router.
To check to see if the router has any brains, do a "show flash"
command when you log in at priviledge mode. If there is a valid
brain installed, it will have a cryptic name such as
c2500-js-l_120-3.bin. Once you have determined that you have
the correct brain for your given router, you need to see if
somebody turned on the learning settings for this device. The
learning settings will govern how much knowledge the device can
attain. There are three levels generally. They are as follows:
Rock Stupid (also called rommon mode, less than helpful mode,
0x2100 mode) - at this level, the router will never really
amount to much in life. This is what your mom warned you about
when she brought up the topic of getting a good education! The
good news is that you can rapidly advance to a more educated
station in life by going to the next educational level. See
grade school mode below.
Grade School mode (also called Rxboot mode, or the baby IOS
mode,boot mode, or 0x2101 mode)- In this mode, you router is in
a good position to learn a lot. It will not actually perform
any useful work however, because it needs more intelligence to
function. It can do the basics, such as find its way around its
environment, ask others for directions, and so on. Of course,
it will never rise to its full potential until it gets a good
education and completes the final education portal (where all
future learning takes place). See High Scool diploma mode
below.
High School diploma mode (also known as Full boot mode, normal
boot, 0x2102 mode and other names). This is the full level of
educational awareness. This is the mode where all forms of
advanced learning take place. It is an absolutely essential
prerequisite to have the high school diploma mode before going
on to advanced educational pursuits such as BS/BA mode, Masters
mode, or PHD mode. We can get to these more advanced modes
simply by swapping out our existing brain (IOS) for a better
brain (More advanced feature set IOS). Of course, you will have
to pay tuition (licensing fees) for that higher education;-)
So, to recap, first you need to see if you have a brain
installed. Do a "show flash" command at user or priviledged
mode to see that a valid operating system exists. Check what
you have against the chart on this page to see if it is correct:
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/620/4.html
or,
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/620/1.html
or,
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/620/5.shtml#identifiers
Once you know you have the correct brain for your router, then
see if it is set to the proper leaning mode listed above. This
is done very simply by inspecting the learning index indicator
(also called the configuration register) with the following
command:
"show version"
Look for the output at the bottom (after pressing the space bar
once) for the configuration register setting. If it is anything
other than high school mode (0x2102), you may need to change it.
Go into your device and get to the following prompt:
Router(boot)# configure terminal<CR>
Router(boot)(config)#configuration-register 0x2102
Finally verify you did it correctly by typing the following
command:
Router(boot)#show version<CR>
You should see the following line appear in the output:
Configuration register is 0x2101(will be 0x2102 at next reload)
Of course, if your router does not have a brain (show flash
command yields no operating system in flash), you made need to
perform brain surgery. That will be a matter for later
discussion :-)
HTH,
Paul Werner
p.s. If you are eager to learn about brain surgery on Cisco
routers, try this link:
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/620/6.html
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