Do you ever get tired of having to jump back and forth between your routers with a console cable? Well if you haven’t heard already, get yourself a terminal server. Look for a 2511 or 2509 access router. You will see that these routers have a SCSI-looking connection on the front of the router. You can use this connection to connect multiple modems or in our case, routers. The 2509 supports 8 console connections while the 2511 will support 16. They don’t come with the cables, so don’t forget to buy them too.

Here are some pics of the router and cable(s) you need:

2509

CAB-OCTAL-ASYNC

I really like using a menu on my terminal server. While reverse telnet works, I personally find this much faster and convenient.

Here is a sample config of what I use on my terminal server:

menu termserver title #

Cisco Lab Access Server
Type a number to select an option
use ‘ctrl+shift+6′ then ‘x’ to switch back to the menu
#

menu termserver text 1 Connect to Austin Router 2811
menu termserver text 2 Connect to Dallas Router 2811
menu termserver text 3 Connect to 3560 Switch
menu termserver text 4 Connect to 3550 Switch Top
menu termserver text 5 Connect to 3550 Switch Bottom
menu termserver text 6 EXIT

menu termserver command 1 resume austin /connect telnet austin
menu termserver command 2 resume dallas /connect telnet dallas
menu termserver command 3 resume 3560-switch /connect telnet 3560-switch
menu termserver command 4 resume 3550-t /connect telnet 3550-t
menu termserver command 5 resume 3550-b /connect telnet 3550-b
menu termserver command 6 menu-exit

menu termserver line-mode

ip host 3560-switch 2010 192.168.15.223
ip host 3550-t 2002 192.168.15.222
ip host 3550-b 2001 192.168.15.222
ip host austin 2016 192.168.15.223
ip host dallas 2011 192.168.15.223

Try adding the “autocommand menu yourmenuname” command under the VTY lines. This will cause the menu to load automatically as soon as you telnet to your terminal server.

Note: Don’t forget—like I did—to configure the “menu-exit” option accordingly –yes, I almost locked myself out

Here is some more information on menus and terminal servers:

Menus [1] link
Terminal Server [2] link

Check out the screenshot below to see what it gives you. This is a very basic menu; you can easily create multiple sub-menus if you want.

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