1st Year Router & Switch Password Recovery

Note: This procedure only applies to the equipment used in the 1st year Intro to Networking courses. All other courses use different equipment. Please refer to the general router/switch password recovery articles for more details

1st Year Router & Switch Password Recovery

Please follow the instructions carefully in order to preform password recovery on the 1st Year Routers or Switches:

Router:

1. Ensure you have a working console connection to the affected router. You should see the router login prompt on your screen.
2. Turn the router off and back on again (use the power menu to accomplish this)
3. When the router turns back on, quickly enter the break sequence. When connected through the access server, the break sequence in ~b. This should put you in ROMMON mode.
4. At the rommon 1> prompt, enter the command: confreg 0x2142. This sets the configuration register to ignore the startup configuration when booting, effectively bypassing the password.
5. Etner the command reset to restart the router. It should boot up with a blank configuration allowing you to bypass the password.
6. Once you are back into the router (at the Router> prompt), type enable to get into privileged exec mode. You should not be prompted for a password.
7. Use the command erase startup-config to erase the saved password from the startup configuration. Press  ENTER when asked to confirm.
8. At the Router# prompt, enter config t to get into global configuration mode.
9. Enter the command config-register 0x2102 in order to reset the configuration register.

Switch:

1. Please submit a support ticket HERE or contact the professor/Teaching Assistant in class to have the device password reset.

Please ensure that you always use either cisco or class as your passwords when configuring the routers and switches, and always make sure you erase your configurations before you leave class.