Serial port with rj45

[marktyreth]

Hi,

I'm currently studying for CCNA, and purchased a Cisco 2507. I see that it has two serial ports, but I'm not particularly familiar with their uses.

What I'm wondering - is it possible for me to convert those serial ports into ethernet rj45 connections so I can route traffic between two rj45 based ethernet connections?

The router has three interfaces:

ethernet 0

serial 0

serial 1

It has a 16 port hub which I assume is the ethernet 0 interface.

Thanks.

Mark

[david.bradley]

Hi Mark,

You need to use a DB-60 DTE cable to connect to you serial interface, normally you would use the cable to connect into a DCE connection, but you can buy DTE DB60 crossover cables for studying purposes.

Dave

[marktyreth]

Hi,

are you talking about connecting two cisco routers together? If so, it's not what I was really wanting to know.

I only have access to one router, and I want to use this single router to route traffice between a network on each side of it. In other words, I need to use one of the serial connections with an ethernet rj45 connection.

I've seen octal cables for db68 iirc that convert a single serial db68 into 8 rj45 connections. Is that the sort of thing I need? Is it available for db60? And will it let me use it on an rj45 ethernet network?

Thanks

Mark

[e.systems]

If you have the 2507 - does it not have a built in 16-port hub? Can you route between that and the RJ45 interface?

[boban]

You probably got the router before you decided what you were going to do with it. A 2 ethernet router like the 2514 is going for less than $200. Get that and now you have two routers for your CCNA lab. On the bright side, if you stick with the 2507 you get to learn how to do "router on a stick" and you can also practice setting up "PAT/NAT" translation. Good stuff for understanding routers, and it is probably the only way to get your two segments talking to each other via the one ethernet port on the 2507.