Skip to main content

How a Cisco device locates and loads IOS

 How a Cisco device locates and loads IOS
5.1.2
The default source for Cisco IOS software depends on the hardware platform. Most routers use the boot system commands saved in NVRAM. Cisco IOS software allows several alternatives to be used. Other sources can be specified for the software, or the router can use its own fallback sequence to load the software.
The settings in the configuration register enable the following alternatives:
  • Global configuration mode boot system commands can be specified to enter fallback sources for a router to use in sequence. The router will use these commands as needed when it restarts.
  • If NVRAM lacks boot system commands that a router can use, the system will use the Cisco IOS software in flash memory by default.
  • If flash memory is empty, a router will try to use TFTP to load an IOS image from the network. The router will use the configuration register value to form a filename from which to boot a default system image that is stored on a network server.
  • If a TFTP server is unavailable, the router will load the limited version Cisco IOS software image stored in ROM.
The Interactive Media Activity will help students become familiar with the process a Cisco device uses to find and load IOS.
The next page will explain how boot system commands are used.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

OSI layers / Peer-to-peer communications / TCP/IP model

OSI layers 2.3.4 This page discusses the seven layers of the OSI model. The OSI reference model is a framework that is used to understand how information travels throughout a network. The OSI reference model explains how packets travel through the various layers to another device on a network, even if the sender and destination have different types of network media. In the OSI reference model, there are seven numbered layers, each of which illustrates a particular network function. - Dividing the network into seven layers provides the following advantages: • It breaks network communication into smaller, more manageable parts. • It standardizes network components to allow multiple vendor development and support. • It allows different types of network hardware and software to communicate with each other. • It prevents changes in one layer from affecting other layers. • It divides network communication into smaller parts to make learning it easier to understand. In the foll...

Advantages and disadvantages of link-state routing

Advantages and disadvantages of link-state routing 2.1.5  This page lists the advantages and disadvantages of link-state routing protocols. The following are advantages of link-state routing protocols:  Link-state protocols use cost metrics to choose paths through the network. The cost metric reflects the capacity of the links on those paths. Link-state protocols use triggered updates and LSA floods to immediately report changes in the network topology to all routers in the network. This leads to fast convergence times. Each router has a complete and synchronized picture of the network. Therefore, it is very difficult for routing loops to occur. Routers use the latest information to make the best routing decisions. The link-state database sizes can be minimized with careful network design. This leads to smaller Dijkstra calculations and faster convergence. Every router, at the very least, maps the topology of it...

Ports for services

Ports for services 10.2.2  Services running on hosts must have a port number assigned to them so communication can occur. A remote host attempting to connect to a service expects that service to use specific transport layer protocols and ports. Some ports, which are defined in RFC 1700, are known as the well-known ports. These ports are reserved in both TCP and UDP.  These well-known ports define applications that run above the transport layer protocols. For example, a server that runs FTP will use ports 20 and 21 to forward TCP connections from clients to its FTP application. This allows the server to determine which service a client requests. TCP and UDP use port numbers to determine the correct service to which requests are forwarded. The next page will discuss ports in greater detail.