Day 2 - Looong overdue

Ok so welcome to Day 2 - only a year and a bit late! Wow - time flies.

So after a long time away from this stuff, I am determined to buckle down and get through it all.

Last time I was here, I was exploring the wonders of Binary and Hexidecimal number conversion. Then came exploring the basics of the OSI model (which has 7 layers in case you're curious).
Application (7)
Presentation (6)
Session (5)
Transport (4)
Network (3)
Datalink (2)
Physical (1)

After this I finally got to turn on a router!  To create this connection, you need a serial port, but if you're like me, your laptop / desktop system doesn't have any serial ports on it, so you need to get yourself a USB to Serial adapter.  If you need to buy one, here's a link.

You'll also need the Serial to RJ45 cable to be able to plug into the Console port on your routers. Luckily one came with my kit from Ciscokits.com but here's a link to one if you need it.

Finally, you will need a program to connect to your router / switch equipment.  Hyperterminal is a great option if you are on an older version of Windows - it's built in to Windows 95 - XP. However with Vista - 8, it is no longer included. You can try and copy it over from XP, but it's probably easier to just install Putty.

The settings for Putty to use on your COM port (the new serial port you created with your USB adapter) are: 9600, 8, None, 1 and No Flow Control.


Now that you have all your adapters, cables and software, you're finally ready to connect. So fire up Hyperterminal (or Putty or whatever your choice of Terminal program is) and lets see what we've gotten ourselves into.