Cisco IOS Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Introduction

The Internet Protocol (IP) seemed ubiquitous three years ago when we wrote the first edition of this book. It was then, as it still is today, the basis of the public Internet as well as nearly all corporate, institutional, educational, and home networks. But somehow it has managed to take on an even more important role than it ever had before.

It now seems almost quaint to find a cellphone that doesn’t have its own web browser, for example. And while the delivery method of choice for WANs was Frame Relay and ATM when we wrote the first edition, it is now MPLS, an IP protocol.

For its part, Cisco has continued to be the dominant network hardware vendor in all but a few niches, and has even edged out a few of its competitors. This has been partly due to excellent marketing, but we see a large part of its success in the Internetwork Operating System (IOS) that runs on most of their routers and switches. Cisco has done a great job of producing new IOS versions with new features, and in keeping this software relatively stable and bug free through frequent incremental software releases.

Of course, these new features and new software versions mean that writing books like this one is a little bit like running a dairy; nobody wants last week’s product. Keeping up with Cisco is hard work, but we think that this new edition has captured many of the most important and useful new IOS features.

Our benchmark software version for this edition is 12.4. The vast majority of the recipes ...