Setting up Putty for Terminal Use:
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First identify the COMM port on the computer on the PC you are using. The serial port may be a physical port on
the workstation, which typically uses COM 1 or COM2. It may also be an emulated serial port via a USB adapter.
In which case the “COM” port will be identified under devices and printers as shown by the orange arrow in
Figure 1.
Figure 1: Identifying Com port
Next, Connect the Serial Cable to the network device’s console port.
Finally, make sure the settings on Putty are correct
Launch Putty and under Session >> Connection Type: Choose Serial as show in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Choosing Serial Connection Type
Next, go to the last Category on the left column and Choose Serial. Verify the Serial Port you are using as well as
the Connection Settings as shown in Figure 3. Since you’ve identified the Com port number you can update it on
the Putty configuration under the Serial settings
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Fig.2: Verify Serial Settings
Typical Settings are listed below in Table 1.
Typical Serial Settings:
Brand
Speed (Baud)
Data Bits
Stop Bits
Parity
Flow Control
Cisco 2950
HP 2524
HP 2615
9600
9600
19200
8
8
8
1
1
1
None
None
None
None
None
None
Table 1: Typical Console settings for networking devices
Setting up Putty for CLI Using Telnet:
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Setting up Putty for CLI use is very straight forward. Simply select Telnet for connection type and type in the
IP address of the device. Figure 3 shows a typical connection setup.
Figure 3: Typical Telnet setup
Navigating CLI Configuration
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When the window opens up it will prompt you with the switch name. It looks like the figure below.
Figure 4: Initial CLI window
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There are some basic functions that most CLI share regardless of the brand. One is displaying a list of
available commands when you enter either question mark (?) or type in help. Try this with to
When you hit question mark on the HP switches you will see that it displays a list of available commands.
This is a great way to navigate around without needing to be an expert with a specific brand. Figure 5 shows
an output window of what you should expect to see after performing the command:
Figure 5: Help command output
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Another useful command to start off with is “show config”. With this command the switch will display
the entire configuration. Figure 6 shows the command executed.
Figure 6: Show config command
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In this case the vlan1 or (default vlan) is the only one configured on the switch. If other vlans were
configured in this switch they would be displayed here. The arrow indicates where the command was
typed in.
To make any changes to the current configuration you must enter configuration mode. To do so, simply
enter “config”. After doing so you will notice that the word config appears in brackets after the name of
the switch. Figure 7 shows a switch in config mode. You will notice that the options are different here if
you enter (?)
Figure 7: Configuration Mode
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To get a look that is closer to a Graphical UI use the “menu” command. This will change the look
from a CLI to a context menu display. This style is better suited for beginners that don’t have most
of the commands memorized yet. Figure 8 shows the menu mode.
Figure 8: Menu Mode