Catalyst 3500XL IOS question

[rbishop42]

I should start off by saying I'm pretty much a Cisco novice. In most cases, i don't know enough to know what I don't know (if that makes sense). In my eagerness to learn Cisco, I jumped in with both feet and purchased a 2 switch, 2 router lab from ebay (recommended by a friend.) While running through a few lab scenarios I noticed that my switches didn't contain some of the more common commands (MAC address port security and interface range commands to name a few) I see in my training videos. This is when I realized that my switches were probably pretty old and the IOS outdated.

Here are the particulars:

IOS (tm) C3500XL Software (C3500XL-C3H2S-M), Version 12.0(5)WC17

c3500xl-c3h2s-mz.120-5.WC17.bin

cisco WS-C3524-XL (PowerPC403) processor (revision 0x01) with 8192K/1024K bytes of memory.

I guess my question is, is there a way to update this IOS to make it more current? If so what is the highest version this switch will run and how do I go about getting it? I am really enjoying my cisco studies and thanks in advance for any advice you may be able to provide me.

Regards,
Rob

[Jon Marshall]

Rob

Unfortunately these are very old switches nowadays. You can do port security but is not as featured as it would be on a newer switch. And some things that you are in our training videos just won't be available.

The latest IOS for these is 12.0(5)WC4/5 and here is a link to the config guide -

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst2900xl_3500xl/release12.0_5_wc5/swg/scg.html

for a modern switch if you could get/afford one a 3560 would be a good choice. The 3550 is also failry decent (older than the 3560) and should be cheaper to obtain.

But you can still learn a lot from what you have.

Jon

[Reza Sharifi]

Rob,

Welcome to the fourm.  Regarding your switches, the latest IOS for this platform on CCO is

c3500xl-c3h2s-mz.120-5.WC17.bin which is what you already have.  The 3500 series is end-of life and end of support, so there is no other version for it.  The other issue you have is because these units ware purchased on eBay, you do not have tech support or Smartnet contract to be able to legally download the latest IOS (if there was one) for them.

HTH

Reza.

[rbishop42]

It was as I suspected! Thanks to you both for your excellent info and quick responses.

Regards,

Rob

[Leo Laohoo]

3500XL running WC17 is not a bad start.  WC17 is the last IOS but the 3500XL is a good way to learn about Layer 2 switching.