New Cisco PIX501 user

[cfiechter]

Hi,

I have a newbee question and would appreciate any help that folks can lend.

I've inherited a couple PIX501's. I need to set them up for remote workers to tunnel into our office. I can't find the device's IP's. I have *no* idea where to start, as Cisco's instructions to access

https://192.168.1.1./startup.html

doesn't work on any of them. Can someone point me towards the first couple steps?

Thank you!
Charlie

 

[gwc27511]

Hi Charlie,

Probably the easiest thing for you to do is connect the serial / programming cable to the PIX and access through Hyperterminal. Connect the cable, and set your COM port in Hyperterm to 9600-8-N-1.

If you get lucky, the previous admin did not spend too much time locking down these PIX 501's, and you will see a prompt that looks like this:

pixfirewall>

Type in 'en' and press enter. This will bring up the "enable" (aka admin-level) command set. Again, if you get lucky, just press enter. If you get this:

pixfirewall#

...then you've got enable commands activated.

There's a couple of ways to view the IP address information.

1) Show interface

You can use the show interface command. The interface named "ethernet0" is the outside interface, and the interface named "ethernet1" is the inside interface. To view the IP information (along with a lot of other info) just type in:

pixfirewall# show interface ethernet0

-or-

pixfirewall# show interface ethernet1

2) Show running-config

Since you've inherited these PIX'es, you might want to begin to become somewhat more familiar with the command / configuration. To view the running-configuation on the PIX, type in:

pixfirewall# show running-config

There are a couple of components to the running config that are relevant here. First is the nameif section, which "names " your interfaces. For example, later in the config ethernet0 is usually referred to as "outside". Look in the config for the lines:

ip address outside X.X.X.X Y.Y.Y.Y
ip address inside A.A.A.A B.B.B.B

The address you are interested in is the inside IP address. If you open your browser and go to

https://inside_ip

then you should be able to get PDM to start and you can config thru the GUI from there.

Also this may help you get going a little easier.

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/iaabu/pix/pix_sw/v_63/config/

Best of luck!
GWC

 

[cfiechter]

GWC Thank you!

Your comments are *very* useful. I was able to flash new images, reset passwords, and configure the interfaces... I'm beginning to understand how the system works. Two other questions that I'd love to ask you.

First, how do I enable http setup services? Inside the configure area, I enabled http and the PIX returns pings, but I don't yet get any response from

https://IP_ADDR/startup.html...

I must be missing something??

Second, do you have any pointers about setting up a VPN tunnel to automatically connect and stay connected.

Again, THANK YOU for your help!

Charlie

 

[julianmd]

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/iaabu/pix/pdm/v_10/pdmig/install.htm

Hope it helps

Julian Dragut