Cisco CCNA, CCENT, And CCNP Home Lab Study: The DTE DCE Cable

More Cisco CCNA, CCENT, and CCNP candidates than ever before are putting together their own home labs for their certification exam study, and that's a great trend - there's nothing prize learning on the real thing!

Part of putting a home lab cool is getting the right cables and generous their usage. In this current Cisco home lab series, we'll take a look at the different cable types and how each fits into your home lab. The first cable type we'll look at is the multi-purpose DTE/DCE cable.

When I say "multi-purpose", I mean that while the cable testament always perform the alike task, it can be used in various different points in your home lab network. Whether you're going to have a frame relay switch - and you should get one provided at all possible, since having your own frame relay cloud is a tremendous boost to your home lab studies and your exam score - you're going to need a DTE/DCE cable.

You can also use a DTE/DCE cable to directly connect two Cisco router serial interfaces and configure HDLC (the default) or PPP encapsulation over that point-to-point link.

Most of today's DTE/DCE cables gain "DTE" clearly stamped on one neb of the cable - actually, "DTE" is probably embedded into the connector itself. Naturally, the other extent will have "DCE" clearly indicated. It's the DCE head that will connect to your frame relay switch. If you're going to use a direct connection to run PPP or HDLC, it almost doesn't incident which end of the cable is connected to a apt router.

Keyword: "almost". You must bag the clockrate command on the DCE end of the connection in order to bring the line protocol up.

If you're not sure which end of your DTE/DCE cable is connected to a given serial interface, conscientious use the display controller serial command to satisfy that information. Most of the output of that order isn't comprehensible, but what we demand is right on top:

R3#show controller serial 1
HD unit 1, idb = 0x11B4DC, chauffeur structure at 0x121868
buffer magnitude 1524 HD unit 1, V.35 DCE cable

Naturally, if it's the DTE end, you'll see "DTE" there. And if you don't have anything connected to that interface, you'll see "no cable".

If you hog your own frame relay switch or not, you'll yen to pick up some DTE/DCE cables for regulate connections between your Cisco home lab router's serial interfaces. Just don't forget to put the clockrate command on the DCE end of the cable! And if you're not familiar with a frame relay switch, check this corresponding website soon for a tutorial that will show you how to establish one up.

Just about any Cisco router can serve as a habitation lab frame relay switch, and once you've got it configured, you're in good shape - however it can be a little maddening to invest in it up and running in the first place. I'll show you how to avoid that aggravation in the closest installment of this Cisco home lab tutorial series!

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