Cisco router.

parkman6551

I have a Cisco 877 ADSL router in my store room and I would like to get it to communicate with the internet as it were. It is a recycled item from a company in the UK who take them back from customers, refurbish and test them and then resell them. I got it after the job for which it was bought was cancelled, about 4 years ago.
I have tried to set it up to use on my home broadband, with the intention of doing away with my wireless broadband router. Most of the rooms in my house have RJ45 points because I installed them years ago.
I would like to know whether some-one could send me a pre-configured file to at least get the router to connect on a Vodafone broadband service, perhaps with some details about where to enter the broadband user name and password.
If I remember, the last time I connected to the router I used the SDM program to read the installed configuration.
Maybe some-one might be prepared to e-mail me a working configuration file, I would be most grateful.
Having looked on a lot of Cisco forums I have noticed a lot of negative remarks from posters about people trying to configure 877 routers. I don't understand why people are prepared to post comments such as "Why are you trying this if you don't understand Cisco coding" or "Do a Cisco network course first". I would like to think that perhaps the same won't happen here, and I do respect people who take the time to be helpful.

parkman

Mayo Yid

Because Cisco are not easy to configure and not for novices, they do not give you a web GUI, it must be done by command line which requires expert network knowledge and training. Experts like to be paid for their knowledge. Go buy a router that's user friendly and you'll have no problem getting the info and help you need. There is nothing special about that Cisco that makes it worth it.

parkman6551

I suppose that I should have expected nothing different here, about trying to configure a Cisco router. Same old nonsense.

Just as an example about helping people - I worked for quite a number of years repairing Mercedes cars until I retired. I, along with a lot of both registered mechanics and enthusiasts, give a huge amount of assistance to Mercedes Benz owners who want to repair their cars without having to go to a Mercedes main dealer at €125 an hour. People who need to reprogram the ecu in their car, people who need to connect error code readers and diagnose electrical, electronic or mechanical problems, and a myriad of other requests.

Now all of the people who are on the Mercedes forums could take the same ignorant, self-serving attitude as yourself and tell the thread poster to get Mercedes to train them before they look under the bonnet of their car, as it is very complicated. But we don't. We try to be helpful to other users.

So I will continue my search elsewhere for some-one other than an unhelpful poster, and hope that if you ask some-one to help you one day when you car won't start you will get a similar reply, and get told to take it to the main dealer,as it is too complicated for you to look at.

parkman

ED E

Mayo above isnt being unhelpful, he's just giving honest advice.


I'm in the middle of the CCNA at the moment and it takes a fair bit of labwork just to start doing basic configs on IOS. You could self teach, but you're talking about 50hrs playing about just to get something that'll sorta work. Then 6 months down the road you'll want to change something and it'll be a right pain to dive back into CLI if you arent doing it day to day.

If it were something a forum could help with we would, but its too in depth really. If you had a networking professional mate who could sit there and do it with you that'd be feasible, but not with the odd list off instructions on boards.

Mayo Yid

Sorry, I missed the bit where you asked for help, you asked for someone to send you a working config which is all the work

Knowledge and experience in Cisco is not free, it's a proprietary product that costs a lot of money to get experience on. Myself, I spent over 2 grand just to study Cisco CCNA, which is the very basic Cisco training module, which took months of my time and I found very hard to pass, it's not easy, you need over 80% to pass so you need to be very tuned in and dedicated. People expect to be paid for their knowledge after putting in that much effort. If you bought a cheap as chips router running an open software you have no problem getting help.

parkman6551

I appreciate the replies, I really do. but I feel again that they miss the point. I know how much it costs to do CCNA as my son was going to do it, but changed his mind and has gone to do automation at Sligo.

When I had to do Mercedes training courses in the early 80's they cost a couple of thousand pounds a time. But as far a car enthusiasts are concerned it doesn't become a reason not to send a complete downloadable ecu reconfiguration file, and if necessary, look through the file to see if there is a glitch in it.

I have an old S class Mercedes and if it wasn't for the assistance of some very well trained old school ex-Mercedes mechanics that car wouldn't be on the road today. I don't know enough about pneumatics systems and this particular car has everything pneumatic. Without specialised assistance I would not have got it repaired.

All the advice and assistance was given, by about 10 different people with varying area's of expertise, freely and without reluctance to help. And yes, the old Mercedes systems are very complicated, and need years of experience. But these people gave, and continue to give, help, advice and assistance to other owners because they can.

I am sorry to say that the arena with the most difficulty accessing genuinely free and helpful assistance is the IT world. There is, and always has been, a view by people in the industry that PC's and IT systems are black arts and can only be solved by people trained in the black arts. Which, of course, is a nonsense.

PC hardware is the same as any other mechanical hardware, there is no great difficulty with it. I have put together PC's for years, from old IBM's in the early 80's to raid machines and now to laptops. Admittedly, I did need advice from time to time, but it isn't rocket science.

I would not go so far as to say that CCNA is easy because I know that it most certainly is not, but I would dispute the argument that it isn't possible to provide a pre-configured file for a router. Now, having run the existing configuration that is probably the factory default and having looked at various Cisco sites there is definitely a fairly standard type of configuration about.

Anyway, that's my point of view. I am waiting for a guy in Newcastle [UK] who is going to e-mail exactly what I am looking for. He has also said that I can e-mail my config. file and he will have a look through it and put in notations for the changes that I need to make.

After that, it is back to a less stressful environment maintaining my two old Mercedes and a supercharged Jaguar. Happy days.

parkman

Mayo Yid

This is different, there is no default config on Cisco, it's a blank canvas that you must build from scratch one line of code at a time. It's doubtful anyone with Ccna would be capable of preparing exactly what you need. Nat is tricky, very advanced. Then there's the firewall. This isn't novice stuff it's expert, and you want the full config not just help with building one.

parkman6551

Ok guys, thanks for your replies. I will see what my man across the water comes up with. After that maybe I will just use my Netgear as a hard wired router. It does have four RJ45 ports on the back, and I can turn off the wireless in the config settings.

Thanks,

parkman

Mayo Yid

You'd easily get help with the Netgear, it has a web GUI and we could easily direct you as to what way is best to set it up. In fact it's already setup as a basic gateway router that would possibly take 1000 lines of code to configure on a Cisco.

Btw, there is nothing special about Cisco, it's overpriced crap. I could direct you to a 25quid Mikrotik that has more power and functionality and you'd actually get help with here, there's even default configs and scripts.

Cork981

I'm doing the CCNP routing course at the moment. While the CCNA did have a lot of content configuring adsl connections was not part of it.

We certainly did Nat and firewall configuration.
I believe I will slightly touch adsl in the CCNP.

Configuring a Cisco would be extremely time consuming. What I'm trying to say is just doing a once configuration would be extremely difficult and time consuming.

parkman6551

Thanks for the replies.

I stand corrected in my opinions. I was under the, seemingly, mistaken impression that the 877 would have been a good alternative to the wireless Netgear DGND 3700. I have been using this router in both its 2.4 and 5 ghz guises to try to limit interference from other very close broadband connections.

I suppose I could just use it as a wired connection as there are 4 ports on the back. As I said earlier, I have data points in most rooms of my house so wired connection is not a problem.

I may as well think about selling the 877 if it is the case that it not worth using in the house.

Again, thanks for the assistance and advice, and sorry for coming over somewhat uncompromising.

parkman

loyatemu

the small Cisco routers do have web interface. if the config has been wiped you might have to pinhole it to reactivate the GUI.