Mac OS X to administer Cisco gear.

[edwardwitte]

I have had Macs for a while now but never used them for working with Cisco routers and switches before.

I was wondering if anyone would like to share their OS X rig for the task. What SFTP , SCP servers for moving configs, any special terminal emulators of choice, things like that?

Thanks,

Ed

[steve.busby]

I started with a Apple PowerBook 3 years ago and now use a MacBook Pro.

For telnet/ssh management (for neary 500 devices) I use Jellyfissh.

http://www.grepsoft.net/

TFTP/FTP image distribution works perfectly with the built in TFTP/FTP servers. Can't say I've had to use SFTP though.

Console access is with a Keyspan USA-19HS USB/Serial converter and zterm. Yeah--zterm, I tried minicom, in fact there's probably an old how-to I referenced in these forums. But with zterm, I don't have to load ports or the like.

http://www.keyspan.com

http://homepage.mac.com/dalverson/zterm/

For the numerous Cisco web interfaces that seem to only accept Windows and IE, I usually use Codeweaver's Crossover Mac or for the heavy-weight java pages I use an XP image in Parallels.

HTH

Steve

[mike-petersen]

Terminal Emulator - Zterm - http://homepage.mac.com/dalverson/zterm/

I connect to my Mac either via a serial port (if I'm on an Xserve) or via a USB-Serial adaptor like this one:

http://www.keyspan.com/products/usa19hs/

Most often though I setup ssh on the Cisco equipment and connect that way with Apple's Terminal app.

Hope that helps!

Cheers,

mikeP

[yjdabear]

SFTP and SCP both come with OpenSSH that's available out-of-the-box on OS X when you choose to install the BSD sub-system.

As far as terminal emulations, this discussion pretty much covers the gamut of possibilities:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20061109133825654

There's this GUI tool for examining/configuring a lot of Cisco devices that had a lot of promise, though perpetual lack of testing on the cat6k is a big miss.

http://www.telconi.com/mac.html

[timm.benkula]

A good program for managing tftp on the Mac can be downloaded at:

http://ww2.unime.it/flr/tftpserver/TftpServer.dmg