Configuring a Cisco router as a terminal server

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From the computer of: Headhunter (10 recipes)
Created: Sep 29, 2004

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When you have a home lab you want to have console connectivity to all your routers at the same time. By using a terminal server (2509-2512 router range) we can accomplish this.

To use a terminal server we need a 2509/2510 8 lines or 2511/2512 16 lines router and 1 or 2 octal cables.
The first thing we do is create a loopback interface that will be used for the reverse telnet sessions from the other devices.
Router(config)#interface loopback0
Router(config-if)#ip address 172.16.1.1 255.255.255.255

Now we add the devices that are connected to this router [octable cable to each console port]
Router(config)#ip host hostname 2001 172.16.1.1
Router(config)#ip host hostname2 2002 172.16.1.1

The previous commands lets you use the hostname of the device to access it on it's console port. The portnumber is made of the following 200x where x is the nr on the octal cable going to that device. Depending on the type of router you use for terminal server you can have either 8 or 16 devices hanging of it.

Now that the router is configured we use the following commands to navigate.
- to access a device
telnet 172.16.1.1 2001

- to switch between active sessions
ctrl-shift-6-x will bring you back to terminal server
show sessions will display the active sessions
entering a number of a session will let you access that session

- to disconnect a session
use the disconnect command