T228 Cisco Networking

NetLABS a brief guide

NetLABS a brief guide

Introduction

Unlike many systems you may encounter in your studies and in industry, NetLab is
not a simulator but a system which allows managed remote access to live router,
switch and firewall systems.

For your CCNA2, 3 and 4 studies NetLab will be used to: -

1. Support the E-Sim and E-Lab material in the Cisco Curriculum

2. Provide ad-hoc access to live router systems whilst you follow your personal
study programme
3. Offer assessment opportunities in select cases
4. Act as a follow up tool once you have attended the day schools

Accessing NetLab

Depending on the location of your tutor and the volume of demand, you may have
an account on

• The Open University System which is http://t228-netlas.open.ac.uk

• The Barnfield College System which is http://www.netlabs.barnfield.ac.uk

You will be issued with a login (which is likely

to be your student PI like M1234567) and
informed which system you will be using
please be aware NetLab is case sensitive and
uppercase, means it must remain so. And a
default password, which you will replace on
immediate login.

Please note, you will only have one account

on one system.

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NetLABS a brief guide

Booking a session

Once you are in the system you may

see classes you have booked and ones
booked for you (your tutor may have a
session planned for you, depending on
your personal need)

To book a class for self study, please

select the CATALOG link.

In this section you will be able to see

‘basic’ reservations, which will cover a
multitude of exercises and also specific
skills related exercises.

To reserve the equipment

(which is termed pod as there is
a collection of routers) you click
on the EXERCISE NAME.

The basic pods allow you to

complete any range of
commands and exercises you
wish, whereas the set
exercises are designed to
guide you through a specific
skill

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NetLABS a brief guide

Booking a session continued

You will be presented with the scheduler, which will provide access to a multitude of
Pods and a diary, which you can book for up to 4 hours use, 24 hours a day, 7 days.
The only limitations imposed are:

• You can only have one session, in each 24 hour period, as we wish to ensure
everyone can have a fair access.
• NetLab automatically deducts 10 minutes to reset the system from any booking.
• We would appreciate a conservative booking policy by yourself, if you only need
2 hours please book 2, not 4.

Click on the plus

icon for the start
time

Once you have become accustomed to

the system you can enable NetLabs to
reload old work from your previous
session (especially if you ran out of
time) or work from a clean system.

When you are happy, select

‘Confirm Reservation’

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NetLABS a brief guide

Using a booked session

When your booked time has arrived the system home page will show your
Scheduled labs with an ‘ENTER LAB’ link.

The system will take a maximum of five minutes to initialize the pod, whereupon you
will be able to start work.

Many exercises are based on the mesh topology as this provides the simplest, best
experience of WAN load balanced and redundant routing.

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NetLABS a brief guide

Accessing a router

Simply click on one of the router icons and a

Java window will appear (this is called the
NetLab telnet applet).

Windows XP users, you may need to visit

www.java.com to download (free) the latest JVM (Java Virtual Machine),
alternatively you can change your
profile (see home page of the
NetLab server) to allow you to use
a local Telnet applet if you feel this
is easier.

The NetLab telnet applet allows

you to change the font size and
background colour, which is
preferred my many students as this
is more accessible.

You will have a separate NetLab

telnet applet for each router, which
means you will have at three open
simultaneously as you are
configuring each device. A useful
tip is to ensure each window has a
different colour, as typing the
wrong command into the wrong
router in the wrong window is
easily done (and often is the cause of greatest confusion and the most inappropriate
language).

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NetLABS a brief guide

Saving your work

One of the considerable benefits of NetLab is the ability for students to save their
work and recall this at a later date. In your lab, you can see the Load and Save
links.

The NetLab server allows you to copy all of the router configurations to a personal
file store which can be viewed by your tutor, thus aiding our ability to help you with
your studies.

Warning, loading will

mean your existing
configuration will be
erased. Please ensure
you have saved it before
using the load option.

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NetLABS a brief guide

And if the kit is misbehaving?

No technology is perfect and routers, being complex systems will have their five
minutes. If you need to
restore the pod, whilst you
are working on your lab,
you can do so, the action
link, offers: -

1. the ability to scrub

all routers or simply
one.
2. Password recovery
(if you manage to
mistype and cannot
reenter the router).
3. a power recycle to
reboot the routers.

If all else fails, book a new session on NetLab using the previous-configuration
option, NetLab will do the rest.

If you feel the problem is beyond reasonable personal intervention, please in the first
instance approach your tutor, who may be able to assist or contact the
administrators for NetLab.

In the nicest possible sense, NetLab will run for years without many issues, often the
problem is the user not entering the right command on the router. But this is all part
of the learning experience.

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NetLABS a brief guide

Seeing the work I have done

As previously mentioned you can

save all the work you have
completed on the NetLab system.
At any time you can review, copy
and edit this work, this can be done
without booking any time on the
equipment.

To use this resource, please select

the File link on your NetLab
homepage.

You can click on any of the

exercises you have saved.

And the router on which you

have worked.

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NetLABS a brief guide

Seeing the work I have done continued

The configuration is
standard ‘Cisco’ format
and can be copied into
other Cisco equipment,
also NetLab allows you to
edit this file for a future
exercise.

Edit file
option

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