Cisco Routers for the Desperate, 2nd Edition

Reading a Configuration

We won't dissect a single complete router configuration in this book because a working configuration for even a small router can easily reach up to 200 lines. Here's how to read this configuration, though.

A Cisco IOS configuration consists of a series of statements. Each statement either activates or deactivates a feature for an interface, a protocol, or the router as a whole, or defines some global characteristic of the router. You'll also see exclamation points, which IOS uses to separate sections of a configuration. (If you store copies of your router configurations in a place other than on the router, you can use exclamation points to indicate comments, much as many program configuration files use the pound sign. The ...