You ever seen Cat OS? Connecting to the Internet in 2025
did you know that Cisco switches used to run an operating system called CatOS? Yes seriously CatOS that was the operating system for switches such as this this is a 5500 Cisco Catalyst switch this switch was manufactured in 1998 what were you doing in 1998 this switch is a 5500 five slots top slot is the supervisor this is running CatOS here we've got FDDI old ring technology that used to use light here we've got an RSM or Route Switch Module this is a router inserted into the switch logically this acts like a router on a stick but rather than having an external router and a separate switch the router is inserted into the switch connected by the back plane this router runs Cisco iOS so we've got the supervisor the brain if you like of the switch running CatOS this is running iOS this is what's called a hybrid switch because we're running both operating systems here we have an Ethernet module with 12 ethernet ports and here we have another one with 24 ethernet ports this brings back some memories for me I've been doing this for so long that I remember configuring switches like this many years ago I really want to thank David for sending me this 5500 series switch and a whole bunch of other devices without these help I wouldn't be able to create as many videos as I am in my retro networking Series so big thanks to David for sending me this device refurbishing Cisco devices and being part of the circular economy let me show you how to configure the switch in 2025 get it booted get it configured and then get it onto the internet so the first thing I'm going to do is plug in this Cisco 9200 CX switch very modern Cisco switch so I'll plug it into say this port that will give the 5500 series switch access to the internet this switch is connected to the internet via this red cable what I'll also do is connect this laptop via Ethernet so let's just choose a port on this module so PC is connected to a port on module 5 the 9200 CX switch is connected to this port on module 4 RSM once again is in module 3 FDDI here and Supervisor over here to configure the switch we need a console Port so what I've got here is USB to DB9 male DB9 female to DB25 male so I'll be using this to configure the switch so I'll plug this into the console port of the switch and plug this into the laptop up here now the router RSM also has a console Port so what I'll do here is take a Cisco rollover cable so I've got USB to male DB9 which I'll connect to female DB9 here and on the other side I'll take the RJ45 connector and that allows me to connect to a db25 port db25 here I'll connect that to the RSM you don't need that I'll show you in a moment how you can jump from the supervisor to the RSM and I'll connect that to the laptop as well so I've got two USB connectors on the laptop that gives me access to the supervisor on the switch as well as the RSM on the switch in other words switch Layer Two and layer three functionality in the old days like this this provided layer 2 functionality and the layer three functionality or routing functionality in the TCP IP model or OSI model if you prefer was done by the RSM so the supervisor module is in charge of the switch the cam table or Mac address table if you prefer and the rod is in charge of layer 3 in other words routing I'll plug in the power cable and now let's boot it up and show you what a switch looks like from the 9090s but on my PC before I do that I'm going to go to device manager and look at COM ports and you can see I've got COM3 and COM18 so I will connect to COM18 using PuTTY nothing is displayed at the moment I'll open up another session and the other Port is COM3 so I'll connect to that as well that'll give me my connection to the switch and the router so moment of truth it's going to be a bit noisy but hopefully it doesn't destroy the audio I'll turn the switch on as you can see here ROM Power Up Diagnostics April 26 1999 a long time ago check sums are done everything is passed switch is now booting up okay as you can see now module one is online module 4 is online here's my console can see the date here 2025 January the 20th module 5 is online so I'll type enable press enter notice the command show run doesn't work because this is CatOS this is not iOS show version works you can see that this is running WS c5000 software compiled June 4 2004 so you can see various modules in slot one Slot 2 Slot 4 other modules are coming online so before I continue let's actually do this show module and as you can see there we've got module one 2 3 4 and 5 we've got our supervisor module in slot one so here's our supervisor I've connected to the console of the supervisor module slot two has fddi two ports over there we have an RSM in slot three so once again this device over here we've got 12 ethernet ports in slot 4 as well as 24 ethernet ports in slot 5 these are 10/100 ethernet ports these are not gigabit Ethernet ports like we have today so very very old now I have preconfigured the switch with some configuration I will reset it so that you can see the full process but if I type show config notice it's different to show run you can see information here such as IP address learned from a DHCP server this interface sc0 is the management interface of the switch this is how you set a static route as an example you can see some DNS information has been configured some NTP information is been configured and we can see the modules on the switch what I'll do just for this example is show you that I can ping the default gateway and I can ping google.com as well as cisco.com through the switch all I had to do was configure the switch to use dhp bring up the management interface and point it to its default gateway which is a rouer connector to the other side of the switch and it can get access to the internet I have a switch from the 1990s accessing the internet with some very basic config I'll reset the switch in a moment so you can see that but again my PC is connected to the switch so show Port shows me firstly that this port 4/5 so slot 1 2 3 4 this module in slot 4 port five is connected to this switch and the interface is up I can also see that this interface slot five so 1 2 3 4 5 17 is connected to the PC so two ports are up at the moment on the switch show CDP neighbor shows me that I've got a device connected to Port 4/5 so once again this cable here is connected to this switch c9200 CX switch is my neighbor and its Port is gigabit 101 and hence I can ping Google google.com because
traffic is going through this cable if I unplug that internet cable as an example you'll notice pings fail because connection is broken if I plug that back in again after a while I'll get access to the internet there it says name lookup failed spanning Tre will have to converge here so that the switch can access the internet and there you go so Google is active Cisco is Al so on the PC so this laptop connected to this port can we get to cisco.com and the answer is yes we can notice they say celebrating 40 Years of innovation Cisco recently had its 40th birthday and if I go to google.com and say what's today's date you can see Monday the 20th of January 2025 I can access the internet through the switch 1990 switch connected to the internet in 2025 but let's reset the switch so let's go through the whole process now before I reset the switch again this switch is running CatOS but the RSM is running iOS so on the switch I can type show version modus different output to what you would normally have with an iOS switch if I try iOS commands such as showrun that doesn't work but if I type session three and the reason for that is because module 3 has the RSM in it notice the console prompt changed from console enable to router I have now jumped internally from the supervisor to the the RSM module so here if I type enable notice this is IOS Show run works we can see the version of iOS running on this RSM show version here you can see it says Cisco internet operating system software or Cisco iOS this is not phone iOS this is Cisco iOS you can see information about the router if I type exit I am back on the supervisor module so again this is a hybrid switch it's running C as well as iOS the layer 2 functionality is CatOS the layer 3 functionality is IOS the router is logically connected as a router on a stick internally within the switch but before I continue let's reset the switch and then I'll show you the full setup so what I'll do now is clear the configuration of the switch so config and let's clear all the configuration of the switch and I am told this will clear all configuration in Envy Ram am I happy to do this yes I am I'm basically resetting the switch to factory defaults now and you can see the configuration has been cleared and we told we need to use the session command to clear ATM or router specific configurations now to do that I'll go to session three once again and type erase startup config and I'll reload the router so I've now been pushed back to the console of the switch notice show run doesn't work here because I'm in CatOS so I'll type show config and and what we'll see here as an example is that it's already learned an IP address from a dhp server but no other configuration exists on the switch so just to prove the point I'll reset the switch just to reboot it and show what happens with a default or reset configuration or cleared configuration and the switch booting up okay so there you go switch is booted I'll type enable to go to enable mode show config shows us the non default configuration notice the modules are still coming online so the config command took a while to display but there you go we can see some configuration on the switch let's do that again so show config it's taking its time but you can see PP Port 4/5 is joined Bridge Port 4/5 so in other words this port has come up we can see the same with Port 517 so that Port has come up I'll press space bar and notice we can see the configuration okay so let's try that again show config third time lucky hopefully there's our switch configuration you can see almost no configuration on the switch so again IP address hasn't been configured or anything module 3 is now online module 3 is the router so show module shows us what's in the switch there are our modules status is showing okay for all of them so that's a good sign show Port shows us that we have a trunk port to the right switch module that's connected that's internal in the switch so connecting from the back plane to the RSM we have Port 4/5 up again this port here as well as 517 that Port over there being up okay I'll quit that show CDP neighbor we can see our 9200 series switch through CDP but let's try and ping google.com notice invalid host address we haven't
configured the switch with any information so now we need to use set commands so set and what are we going to set and in this case I want to set the sc0 interface to use DHE and I'm going to renew that so notice it's sending a DHCP request show interface okay you can see it took a while but it got an IP address so show interface question mark and I'll press enter there you can see the switch got an IP address from a DHCP server so DHCP server is on the other side of this Cisco 9200 CX switch switch has got an IP address so can we ping our local IP address which is this address yes we can can we ping the default gateway yes we can can we ping google.com at the moment no let's set a dhp or rather DNS server information so set IP DNS server 8.8.8.8 okay it says that's a backup service so that means it's already got a DNS server configured and there it is that was received through DHCP so let's say set IP DNS s enable so enable the DNS service can we ping cisco.com now yes we can so we had to enable DNS can we ping google.com yes we can so again show config the switch has learned this IP address from DHCP so I didn't have to configure that so DHCP server is 192.168.0.1 default gateway is that that was automatically received through Dynamic host configuration protocol so was the DNS server I manually config figured that one and enable DNS this was automatically learned hence the time showing correctly on the switch we can see the modules very basic configuration so let's look at spanning tree so show spanning tree and it's actually span tree here we can see that for VLAN one spanning tree is enabled type is i e designated root is this that is the same Mac address as the local switch same with the priority notice the cost to get to the root is zero so this switch is the root switch it's a very old switch in spanning tree the lowest priority or lowest Mac address wins so this switch is the root switch we can see Spanning Tree port information here but let's actually tell net to the other Cisco switch just to make the point so show CDP neighbor and what I'll do here is use detail to see the IP address of the Cisco 9200 series switch So that's its IP address so I'll telnet to 192.168.02.01 I'll log in shows spanning tree now in this case I'm working on this switch so show spanning tree you can see it's using rapid spanning tree this is its cost to get to the root switch so its root Port is gigabit 101 which is the port to the 5500 series switch it's also got this port which takes us to the Internet so both those ports are forwarding so again on the 5500 series switch running katos you can see that it's the root switch so we have interoperability between a really old switch and a very modern switch using spanning tree spanning tree is there to stop Loops in the topology and to make the point I'll plug in another Ethernet cable so let's take this port on the supervisor and plug that into Port two on the other switch so show spanning tree these two ports were previously not connected but now Port 1/1 has come up so I'll type that again shows span tree you can see it's busy listening at the moment now it's gone to the learning State again that's the port on the supervisor and now it's gone to the forwarding state so let's see if anything changed on the 9200 series switch so switch at the top here show spanning tree as you can see now things have changed gigabit 101 has become an alternate Port that's blocking gigabit 103 has now become the root Port so why did it do that let's have a look on the Catalyst switch this is port 1/1 with a cost of 19 priority of 32 this port however has a greater port number so 4/5 with a cost of 19 priority of 32 so this is seen as a better port to get to the root switch so again on The Cisco iOS switch show spanning tree it's determined that gigabit 103 is the better port to get to the root switch gigabit 101 is now blocking okay so simple example with spanning tree now again this computer can connect to the internet show Port the port that it's using is 5/17 show VLAN shows us that all ports on module 5 are in VLAN one so show VLAN VLAN one all ports on VLAN one here I could create a VLAN so let's say set VLAN 2 so make VLAN 2 but it tells me that I cannot add or modify vlans on a vtp without a domain name so show vtp vtp rather domain I haven't got a vtp domain configured so set vtp domain let's just call it Cisco so show vtp domain you can see the domain name is now Cisco so let's create VLAN 2 VLAN 2 is now configured so show VLAN shows us that we have VLAN 2 but no ports are currently configured in VLAN 2 so set VLAN 2 and the port that I want to configure is 5 slash and let's scroll up here 5 sl17 that's the port where the PC is connected so I would say that to put it into VLAN 2 before I do that however on the PC let's set a continuous ping so ping cisco.com at the moment this PC can ping cisco.com but if I change the VLAN number to
VLAN 2 notice the pings type out I haven't set up into VLAN riding or anything to allow this PC to get to the Internet so at the moment show VLAN shows me that 5/17 is configured in VLAN 2 but I haven't configured a rouer to allow VLAN 2 access to other vlans so let's configure that Port back to VLAN 1 so 5/17 and hopefully after a while pings should start succeeding okay took it a while but there you go PC Canal ping cisco.com because I've moved it back to vline 1 okay but let's configure the router so at the moment show CDP neighbor on the switch shows us that I've got two connections to the 9200 CX switch but I don't see the router so I'm going to type session three because again the RSM is in slot three that takes me to the router now show run shows me that I have really no configuration on the router so I'm going to say host let's call this RSM interface VLAN one IP address and let's configure it with an IP address of 192.168.0254 so something like that no shut it and let's configure VLAN 2 and let's keep the numbers consistent here to make it two now and no shut that so show IP interface brief what I've configured is an IP address on VLAN 1 and an IP address on VLAN 2 but VLAN 2 is currently down but hopefully on this router I should be able to Ping the default gateway which I can if I configure the DNS server I should be able to Ping the internet so IP domain lookup IP name server and let's just make it Google for this example can the router ping google.com Okay it's not working let's try ping 192168 0.1 again ping 8.8.8.8 so the DNS
server not working because what I forgot to do was set a default gateway or default route so confy IP route bunch of zeros 19216801 let's try again so ping Google DNS that works ping cisco.com and that also works and I'll save the config so the router can now ping the internet show CDP neighbor on the router notice it sees a neighbor relationship to the 5500 I'll exit and go back to the switch and notice on the switch now show CDP neighbor it sees the 9200 series switch so the switch here it sees the RSM so the router as a neighbor as well as the 9200 series switch the RSM again is acting like a router on a stick so logically it's connected via cable internally so session three back on the router now show IP interface brief again notice we've got a VLAN zero interface that's a logical interface to the switch now before I troubleshoot while the VLAN is down I'll set up a dhp pull so IP dhp pull let's create a vline 2 pull Network 1921 16820 with the subnet mask default Rod is2 1682 254 DNS would be Google let's say so when I move the PC into VLAN 2 this is the information they'll use so show run again there's the VLAN 2 dhp information I've got the svis are switched virtual interfaces here now I just use to figure out why the interfaces are down Okay so this vline interface is down let's see if we can fix that so I'm going to jump back to the switch so the supervisor module show VLAN shows us that no ports on VLAN 2 now this setup is clever enough that the switch or the supervisor module tells the RSM that there are no interfaces in VLAN 2 so the svi or the layer 3 interface on the router goes down or stays down because no interfaces are in that vline so what I'll do is set this port which is the port that the PC is connected to once again to VLAN 2 so the port is now in VLAN 2 so show VLAN shows us that that interface is now in VLAN 2 that's the only interface in VLAN 2 so let's see if that changes the output on the router so session three to jump back to the router now show IP interface brief notice layer three interfaces come up because there is a layer 2 interface in VLAN 2 so that's good so paying 1921 1682 254 Works show IP DHE binding shows us that an IP address has been allocated to the PC so on the PC I'll open up a command prompt or Powers shell in this case and type ip config notice it's been allocated an IP address in that VLAN so can it ping its default gateway to 254 yes it can can it ping 0254 which is the IP address of the router in VLAN one so again that IP address there that works so inter VLAN routing is working can it pinging the switch the switch had this IP address now it's not working because the switch's default gateway is a router in my topology and that router isn't very intelligent so the only way we're going to get this to work is to either run a routing protocol or enable net so that this network is hidden from the local router the local router in my infrastructure isn't very clever it's not running a routing protocol so it can't work out how to get the traffic back to the PC so what I'll do here is type interface VLAN one ipn outside interface VLAN 2 IP net inside so I'm going to put VLAN 2 on the inside of the net configuration IP net inside source list let's say one interface VLAN one and I'll say overload access list one permit any so show run basically shows us that VLAN one is the outside from a net point of view VLAN 2 is the inside and everything is going to be Ned on that interface that basically just allows this PC to send traffic to VLAN 1 and get the traffic back again so notice I can ping the supervisor module now I can ping my default gateway and hopefully if everything works I'll be able to Ping google.com and that works and I'll be able to Ping cisco.com so what I've done now is put this PC into VLAN 2 if I had set the default gateway of all my devices to the RSM rather than just some dodgy little router here in my home network I wouldn't have had to enable net but I've had to do that so that I don't have to run OSF or writing protocols within my topology okay so what I'll do is save the configuration of the RSM I don't have to save the config of CatOS that's saved automatically and notice there is my configuration on the switch very basic configuration I think that's enough now let me know what you think did you enjoy this video did you enjoy learning about this 5500 series switch I've got a whole bunch of old Cisco devices that I can demonstrate I been doing this for a long time I remember working on 5500 switches years ago 6,500 switches years ago but hopefully this is enjoyable in 2025 please put your comments below the kind of stuff that you want to see me create content about I'm David Bombal and I want to wish you all the very best
2025-02-14 04:30
