Cisco IOS

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about Cisco Systems' router/switch OS. For Apple's mobile/tablet OS, see Apple iOS. For other uses, see IOS (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2009) Cisco IOS Company / developer Working state Source model Latest stable release Latest unstable release Available language(s) Supported platforms Default user interface Official website Cisco Systems Current Closed source 15.1(4)M2[1] / September 27, 2011; 3 months ago 15.2(1)T1[2] / September 23, 2011; 3 months ago English The majority of Cisco routers and current Cisco switches Command line interface Cisco IOS

Cisco IOS (originally Internetwork Operating System) is the software used on the vast majority of Cisco Systems routers and current Cisco network switches. (Earlier switches ran CatOS.) IOS is a package of routing, switching, internetworking and telecommunications functions tightly integrated with a multitasking operating system. The IOS CLI provides a fixed set of multiple-word commands the set available is determined by the "mode" and the privilege level of the current user. "Global configuration mode" provides commands to change the system's configuration, and "interface configuration mode" provides commands to change the configuration of a specific interface. All commands are assigned a privilege level, from 0 to 15, and can only be accessed by users with the necessary privilege. Through the CLI, the commands available to each privilege level can be defined.

Contents
[hide]

1 Versioning 2 Trains

2.1 Until 12.4 2.2 Since 15.0

3 Packaging / feature sets 4 Architecture 5 Security and vulnerabilities 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Versioning
Cisco IOS is versioned using three numbers and some letters, in the general form a.b(c.d)e, where:

a is the major version number. b is the minor version number. c is the release number, which begins at one and increments as new releases in the same a.b train are released. d (omitted from general releases) is the interim build number. e (zero, one or two letters) is the release train identifier, such as none (which designates the mainline, see below), T (for Technology), E (for Enterprise), S (for Service provider), XA as a special functionality train, XB as a different special functionality train, etc.

Rebuilds - Often a rebuild is compiled to fix a single specific problem or vulnerability for a given IOS version. For example, 12.1(8)E14 is a Rebuild, the 14 denoting the 14th rebuild of 12.1(8)E. Rebuilds are produced to either quickly repair a defect, or to satisfy customers who do not want to upgrade to a later major revision because they may be running critical infrastructure on their devices, and hence prefer to minimise change and risk. Interim releases - Are usually produced on a weekly basis, and form a roll-up of current development effort. The Cisco advisory web site may list more than one possible interim to fix an associated issue (the reason for this is unknown to the general public). Maintenance releases - Rigorously tested releases that are made available and include enhancements and bug fixes. Cisco recommend upgrading to Maintenance releases where possible, over Interim and Rebuild releases.