Router login

Router login
2.2.5 To enter commands and configure a Cisco router, a user must log into the router to access the user interface. This page will show students how to log into a router.


For security purposes, a Cisco router has two levels of access to commands:

• User EXEC mode – Typical tasks include commands that check the status of a router.
• Privileged EXEC mode –Typical tasks include commands that change the router configuration.

The user EXEC mode prompt is displayed upon login to a router, as shown in Figure .

To enter privileged EXEC mode, type enable at the > prompt. If a password has been set, enter it at the password: prompt. The two commands that can be used to set a password for privileged EXEC mode are enable password and enable secret. Two commands can be used to set a password used to access privileged EXEC mode: enable password and enable secret. If both commands are used, the enable secret command takes precedence. After the login steps have been completed, the prompt changes to a #. This indicates that the privileged EXEC mode has been entered. The global configuration mode can only be accessed from the privileged EXEC mode. The following are specific modes that can also be accessed from the global configuration mode:

• Interface
• Subinterface
• Line
• Router
• Route-map

To return to the user EXEC mode from the privileged EXEC mode, the disable command may be entered. Type exit or end or press Ctrl-Z to return to privileged EXEC mode from global configuration mode. Ctrl-Z may also be used to return directly to the privileged EXEC mode from any sub-mode of global configuration.

The next page covers some help functions of the Cisco IOS.