I’m still in the process of working on my Cisco Router Simulator to help all those just starting out and are preparing for their CCENT Exam, but I already have some basic functionality working so that you can start getting your hands dirty.
This tutorial is going to cover all the different modes that Cisco Routers have and then allow you to practice entering and exiting them yourself. Cisco routers have several different modes in order to control access to different parts of the router. Let’s begin:
User Exec Mode
The first mode that you will enter when you first boot up a Cisco router is user exec mode. You can tell you are in user exec mode because of the ‘>’ symbol. In this mode you can’t configure anything, but you can run a few show commands that are used to look at the current configuration
Privileged Exec Mode
The next mode that you will encounter is privileged exec mode. In this mode you will have the ability to look at a lot more configuration settings and also the option to enter configuration mode so that you can actually change settings on the router. Privileged exec mode is also known as enable mode because you have to type the ‘enable’ command to get into it.
Global Configuration Mode
To enter global configuration mode you need to type the command ‘config t’. Once you are configuration mode you can do things like change the name of the router.
Interface Configuration Mode
If you want to configure an ip address for one of the interfaces you will need to enter interface configuration mode by typing ‘interface ethernet0′ or whatever the name of the interface happens to be. For right now my simulator only has interface ethernet0, but I plan on adding some serial interfaces down the road.
Once you have entered a mode and you want to go back to the previous mode type ‘exit’. Once you are in privileged exec mode and you want to get back to user exec mode you will need to enter the ‘disable’ command.
Here is an example of entering and exiting from all of the configuration modes:
Now it is your turn to practice. Remember that the best way to learn is by doing things yourself.