remotely logging in

In article , Blacksayien wrote: :I'm sorry that i didn't mention the equipment is my own and I'm trying to :set up a Cisco lab.I have a 2511,3 2501's a 501 pix, 1 2502,1 2503,1 2612,1 :2521 a 2924 switch.I will upgrade of course when my experience level :increases but for now i just want to be able to log in from work or school :to my home lab.

That won't be "just like" having a remote rack. When you have a remote rack, you have a fair degree of control of the equipment on -both- ends. When you are at school in particular, you probably do not have the luxary of installing equipment or software in order to reach the remote equipment; whether you could do so at work depends on your workplace.

You will probably want to set up a computer with Unix, Linux, or something like AT&T's UWin. Then set up one of the devices, such as the PIX, to allow outside access to connect directly *only* to that one computer. You would log in remotely from school / work to that computer, and use the facilities of that system to connect to whichever part of the home lab you wanted.

If you really want to be testing those routers in lab environments, then you are going to end up in situations in which you are trying to work with two routers that are not on a common network. That's relatively easy when you are right in front of your equipment and can connect to the console ports, but to do that kind of work remotely, you are likely going to want to connect each of your routers and switches to a serial port that you can talk to from the service computer. You can stuff a bunch of serial cards into the service computer for that, or you can get a "console server" that is designed for such situations. Either way, be sure to consider whether you only need to talk to one serial port at a time, or whether you need the different ports connected simultaneously (e.g., so you can watch the system messages come up on one of the devices as you configure another device.)

You might also find that you want to be able to simulate power failures or device burnouts; remotely-controllable power switches are useful for that.

As you connect together your lab, you should always be thinking of matters such as, "Suppose that I make a mistake when I configure this device and it ends up off of the network: how am I going to recover from that?" And of course keep in mind that if that happens, you aren't going to be able to reach any devices "beyond" that device in order to connect in through one of them -- you won't be able to do the equivilent of just turning to a second keyboard, or of moving a cable. [Though you could look into "kvm" switches, which are devices to allow you to use a single keyboard, mouse, and display to control several different computers. There are networked kvm switches as well.]