Connecting Ubuntu to Real Cisco Hardware Using USB-to-Serial Adapter

This quick video will show you how you can connect your real hardware networking equipment such as Cisco routers and switches into your PC running Ubuntu 11.10/12.04 using serial-to-USB adapter.

Most, if not all, of the current motherboards do not come with pre-built COM (AKA serial) ports any more, so this video will show you how you can connect to the adapter using an excellent program called 'minicom'.

Regards

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Closed Caption:

hi everyone this is college from Genesee
talk and this quick video i'll show you
how to connect your 12 into your sis
Caracas as which is using a serial to
USB adapter the top of adapters i'm
referring to our quad serial serial to
USB adapter i bought this at the at this
adaptive a which is something similar to
this one it's got like one single USB
end and the other end is connected it's
got for serial connections so with this
kind of adapter you could connect four
off your cisco equipment using one
single USB port
there's only one problem with these
adapters is they don't really come
numbered so you don't really know which
virtual USB connections will be
connected to which so in this short
video i'll show you how to set up and
find out which so you report it belongs
to which so this is basically gns3
website and there's this section which
caused switching and how to console into
your devices and it briefly explains how
to use this this adapter so i'm going to
do now is bring up this i'm going to do
is bring up the document and this spring
document that i just wrote is will show
you how to connect the hard way into
going to using serial to USB adapter so
first of all let me just bring up by the
adapter that i just bought off ebay this
adapters you may cease got force your
connections and i had to label all of
these us serial ports because i really
come labeled so the first step that you
need to do is you need to connect the
quad cereal
USB adapter into USB port on the back of
your pc this is obviously that you this
is something given then you need to plug
in this is control over cable to that
doctor and you could see this here so
this is the this other for adapters and
you can see one of the USB one of the
serum rollover cables connected into
them and the other end of the roller
cable will be connected into the cisco
equipment
alright so what we first need is to
identify the series of tales of this
quarter serial adapter using a program
called Minicon as i said before this for
tales do not have labels on them so if
for future references if you want to
connect your for cisco switch is of
course his carotid into these ones are
really know which one belongs to which
so what I'm going to do now is go to
jump into console just let me move it
away and i'm going to install the
application so apt-get install minicom
and just keep your password
voila it's already installed so so
that's it
what I'm going to do now is we need to
jump into minicom and in to configure it
so many com is will be talking to the
USB adapter
however before we jump into you become
there's one more thing that we need to
do so i'm going to go and create a new
window
we need to find out whether the open toe
has identified all of these tales or
without it has identified the driver for
this quote serial to USB adapter so i'm
going to do is display message the
message and then grip which will show us
briefly what we want to find out TTYL so
what what this does is it's going to
bring up the messages the colonel throws
and display any message that has TTYL in
it so go enter and you could see that
the adapter has been identified how do
we know that well you can see that the
peel 2303 is the driver that want to
uses to connect to this adapter for this
converter and you can see there's us be
0 usb1 usb2 and USB 3 so we need these
four parameters to connect into the four
tails of our USB to serial connections
so this is not a given i'm going to go
to this window again and going to a
pseudo minicom and i believe it's my
dash S yep so this will bring up that
chest will bring up the configurations
for minicom I need to go to the sea
report set up so you choose the third
option
ok so this will show us what the proper
way of connecting to your your cisco
switches routers have this document here
above and this is probably you guys
might be familiar with these values so
the bits per second for any cisco
routers or switches will be 9600 add a
bit is eight no parity one stop it and
not flow control so many come we need to
key in these values into minicom to be
able to connect and into the USB into
the USB adapter and then into the serial
connection so for me to choose this
option is i need to go to a so I'm gonna
press on a on the keyboard you can see
that the cursor has jumped into this and
as you may know so you leave this one
intact and we have four tails as you may
know so we are really know which tell is
which so given that you have a a new
adapter that does not have any labels on
it you need to map each adapter into
each port so the best way to do it to do
it is our just plug my ears roll over
cable into all of these four adapters
one by one and see how it goes
so I'm going to do now is the just copy
this and paste it here
using ctrl shift + v
alright so i'm going to press enter a
location but look for location just
don't worry about this one calling
program don't worry about it
call out program don't worry about it
bits per second so i'm going to press on
a on the keyboard and it brought up this
message
so the what speed we need within the
9600 as you can see here so i'm going to
press on see which parity we said that
there is the parity is not so I'm gonna
press on Ellen my keyboard
what's the data bits which would be
eight so i'm going to press on the on my
keyboard stop bits is one so i'm going
to press on w and the flow control is
not this is something we'll follow up so
this is done i'm going to press Enter
alright how to flow control you could
jump into F or just press on efforts to
switch between our yes i know so i'm
going to press f11 know so the setting
is done i chose I chose just the USB 0
so TTYL us be 0 and i'm going to start
from this one
press ENTER i'm going to save setup as
default DFL and i'm going to exit so
many com is now initially initiating
initializing the modem and you could see
that i'm already connected to my switch
the reason being i am connected to my
switches because i know that i was
connected to the SP 0 for you if you
have a receive if you received a new web
and quad to see your connector then you
might have to go through the hassle of
switching your role of a cable between
all of these ports until you hit the
right one and then you could label it
then you need to go back again to
minicom while basically just need to go
and create a new window
you go again to minicom dashes in the
passwords because this is set up again
press on a on keyboard changing into one
and keep switching between yeah between
these ports until you label them
properly so yep you could see that i'm
actually connected to my USB into my
cisco switch using the zero connection
so it was so go she'll run
actually let me go short version
this is basically a 2950 believe you can
see says the 20-minute to what 2950
switch so we have this is probably this
is the best way of connecting your real
hard way cisco switches are out is using
one of these adapters whether using
quote adapter or using just a single USB
to serial adapter the you way they used
to
to connect to these cisco hardware
switches ours is pretty much the same
and the next video I'll show you how to
use the serial to net program which is
an excellent piece of software that
map's every single serial connections on
your open toe and two into a part where
you could tell let into your cisco
switch mottley this is something a lot
of explain later and then in the
following video
look I hope this has been informative
and i would like to thank you for
watching