Not able to go into Rommon.. router rebooting in "readonly rommon only"

[ankit.chhawsaria]

Hi,

I have some unused routers being kept in the datacenter. I thought of making use of it and create a lab.

Now in that I have one Cisco2921 router which was configured by someone but he is no longer in our team. Now when i connect to the router through console. It gives the below output only all time. I am not able to go into rommon where i can change the confreg. If someone could help me, it would be of great help as to how to break in :

Readonly ROMMON initialized
program load complete, entry point: 0x80803000, size: 0x1b340


IOS Image Load Test
___________________
Digitally Signed Release Software
program load complete, entry point: 0x81000000, size: 0x3bcb49c
Self decompressing the image : ################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################ [OK]

Smart Init is enabled
smart init is sizing iomem
                 TYPE      MEMORY_REQ
          HWIC Slot 0      0x00200000
    Onboard devices &
         buffer pools      0x022F6000
-----------------------------------------------
               TOTAL:      0x024F6000

Rounded IOMEM up to: 40Mb.
Using 7 percent iomem. [40Mb/512Mb]

              Restricted Rights Legend

Use, duplication, or disclosure by the Government is
subject to restrictions as set forth in subparagraph
(c) of the Commercial Computer Software - Restricted
Rights clause at FAR sec. 52.227-19 and subparagraph
(c) (1) (ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer
Software clause at DFARS sec. 252.227-7013.

           cisco Systems, Inc.
           170 West Tasman Drive
           San Jose, California 95134-1706



Cisco IOS Software, C2900 Software (C2900-UNIVERSALK9-M), Version 15.0(1)M6, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Technical Support: http://www.cisco.com/techsupport
Copyright (c) 1986-2011 by Cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Wed 01-Jun-11 16:54 by prod_rel_team
Image text-base: 0x2100AB58, data-base: 0x25954280


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Cisco CISCO2911/K9 (revision 1.0) with 483328K/40960K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID FGL15221083
1 FastEthernet interface
3 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
DRAM configuration is 64 bits wide with parity enabled.
255K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
254464K bytes of ATA System CompactFlash 0 (Read/Write)

in-nso-banga-ce-05 line 0

User Access Verification

Tacacs not reachable - Enter local username:
Tacacs not reachable - Enter local username:

[Mark Malone]

why cant you get into rommon ? you reload the router and as its starting press ctrl + break , that brings you into rommon
you need to wipe it if you don't have the password or do a password recovery and to do that you need to go to rommom mode
you cant do anything from standard mode you see as its password protected

[minkhant737031657]

I solved it like the way of yours, thanks.

[Peter Paluch · Accepted solution]

Hi Ankit,

The trick is to send the Break sequence while the router is booting up and the # symbols are being displayed on the screen. However, every software may have a different key combination to send the break sequence. The following document lists the key combinations to send a Break sequence for some of the terminal software emulators:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/routers/10000-series-routers/12818-61.html

For PuTTY (which is not described in the document above), the combination is <Ctrl><Break> as well, and you should also try sending it from the Special Commands menu: Right-click on the title bar of a PuTTY window, select Special Commands, and then choose sending the Break. If you are using a different terminal software, it should also have an option of sending the Break by choosing a proper function from the menu.

Make sure that you are connected to the CON port, not to the AUX port.

Best regards,
Peter

[ankit.chhawsaria]

Thanks everyone for your help. :)