C3550 images difference?

[Gagovski]

Hi, I am currently learning and labbing for my CCENT Cert. 

So I wanted to enable SSH, but had the "crypto" command missing. I then googled that my image probably doesn't support "crypto".

At the Cisco Feature Website I can search for all available images that have been released for my router (Model number: WS-C3550-24-SMI). 
But what is difference between SMI/EMI/IP services images?

I understand my switch runs a SMI image. EMI should be more enhanced. And what about the "IP services" image? Is that the most feature rich one?

I have now installed this image:
Version Suffix: ipservicesk9-122-52.SE
Image Name: c3550-ipservicesk9-mz.122-52.SE.bin
Version Directory: c3550-ipservicesk9-mz.122-52.SE
Image Feature: IP|LAYER_3|PLUS|SSH|3DES|MIN_DRAM_MEG=64
Image Family: C3550

Should be good, as it supports Layer 3 routing and SSH also.

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

EMI is indeed more feature rich. Check Table 4 of the attached document.

That said, the 3550 is End-of-Life/End-of-Sale for a long time, you cannot get the images from Cisco's website anymore...

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst3550/software/release/12-2_52_se/release/notes/OL19712.html#wp63061

[Sam Smiley]

The initial release software for the 3550 was distinguished as SMI (ipbase) & EMI (ipservices). Somewhere in the lifetime of the 3550 Cisco dropped the SMI/EMI designation for the ipbase and ipservices labels. I believe this distinction was changed in the transition from IOS version 12.1 to 12.2  I still have a couple of old images for a 3550, I have two 12.1 images in a folder label SMI (c3550-i9k2l2q3-mz.121-22.EA10b.bin). The final release images for the 3550 were designated as ipbase/ipservices (c3550-ipservicesk9-mz.122-44.SE6.bin).

To answer the OP's question, the crypto command will require a K9 image. You will notice the K9 designation in both of the examples above.

Cheers,

Sam