Hi all. I’m Matt and I live in Australia. I like to learn Cisco as a hobby and am not employed in the IT industry. I did the CCNA back in the 90s and was planning to get into IT but as these things work out I “fell” into another industry. The Cisco stuff helps me keep my brain active and gives me a challenge.
My home setup is an 1841 with an HWIC-1ADSL for internet connectivity. It has a ZBPF for security and is connected to the home network via a PIX506e and a gig switch. The PIX gives another layer of security should the bad guys break into the 1841. I have two AIR-AP1131AG-N-K9 access points that allow for wireless connectivity.
The 1841 is the DHCP server and NTP master. The APs are relays for these services.
I have modified the 1841 by adding extra 3rd party memory and it runs the c1841-advipservicesk9-mz.151-4.M10.bin IOS. The PIX has 256MB RAM and I’ve added a Pentium III 900MHz that runs at 746MHz due to the bus speed multiplier. It runs Cisco PIX Firewall Version 6.3(5).
I also have a 2851 with an HWIC-1ADSL, HWIC-AP and a HWIC-D-9ESW. It runs the c2800nm-adventerprisek9-mz.151-4.M10.bin IOS and I’ve increased the memory to 1GB using 3rd party memory. I plan to set this up as the replacement for the 1841 as a bit of a project. I also have a PIX515e that I might throw in to the setup for fun.
The thing I like about this older Cisco gear is that they are still quite useable and are easily modifiable for lab and home use. They can be got from eBay very cheaply and don’t have the licensing issues you get with the later universal IOS variants. If you can get a router with the advanced IP services or the security services IOS installed it will do pretty well anything you need it to do.
I’ve included a couple of photos of my setup for reference. The PIX506e has its lid off because it tends to overheat during our long hot Australian summers. The PIX515e has its lid off because the memory is too tall to fit!
So far I’ve found this site very helpful in my quest for Cisco knowledge. Thanks Rene.
Cheers,
Matt.
The 1800 series routers are great to have. They are cheap nowadays and they run IOS 15 so they are very useful. There’s only a few commands that they don’t support.