Passing The Cisco CCNA Exam: An Illustrated Guide To Router Modes
When you’re getting started on your CCNA studies, learning the different router modes is key to passing your Intro and ICND exams. But keeping those modes straight can be very difficult. (At least it was for me!) Let’s take a look at the various router modes you’ll need to know about to pass your CCNA, and use IOS Help to illustrate the different uses of each mode.
The first mode you’ll see on a router (if the person before you logged off as they should have) is user exec mode. This is also the default mode a user is placed into when using Telnet to connect to a router. The prompt will look like this:
R1>
You can’t write or add to a configuration in this mode, but you can run quite a few show commands. This is a good mode to have users in who need to see the configuration, but shouldn’t be allowed to change it.
To get to the next level, type enable at the user exec prompt:
R1>enable
R1#
Notice that the prompt changed. This mode has two names, the official one being privileged exec mode. It’s more commonly referred to...