Cisco3548 Configuring

[RadioX]

I am getting a new Cisco3548 in tomrrow. I am new to the Cisco switch line. I have dealt with plenty of their routers though. What I am wondering is if there is any special config I have to do to get them to work or can I plug them in straight out of the box and go.

Also I am interested in using some of its layer 3 capabilities.

What I have is three different class C address's and I want them all to use the same gateway. Is this possible. For example I have

20X.1XX.4X.1 as a gateway
I want 20x.1XX.4X.2-254 to use this as a gateway
I also want 20X.2X.3X.1-254 to use this as a gateway
and I want 20X.2X.4X.1-254 to use this as a gateway.

How would I go about starting to configure the switch so all this will work or will it work.

Thanks
Ron

 

[aero1]

Ron,

The 3500 series are layer-2 devices. That should answer most of your questions right there. As far as the initial configuration, you can just power it up and go through the initial setup dialog. This includes hostname, ip address, default gateway, subnet mask, etc. Takes about 60 seconds if you have all the info available. You can configure vlans, trunking, switch clustering, spanning tree, etc. (if you use them) afterwards.
If you wanted a switch with layer-3 capabilities, you could have gone with the new 3550-series, which will be replacing the 3548 and 3524.
Your switch should have come with a disk with Adobe Acrobat manuals which will come in handy.

John