The Cisco Command Line Interface

I have been digging in deep lately, trying to learn networking basics. Down at OSI layer 2. Studying how switches work in minute detail. Moving up to understand how routing works at OSI layer 3 as well. There is a lot going on.


Got access to a simulator. I can pretend to log into Cisco switches and routers. Access them through a command line interface (CLI). The problem is that there is a whole language I got to learn. It also feels like a wonky version of MS-DOS.


Just when I thought all was lost, I got ahold of a "cheat sheet" full of Cisco commands. I was off to the races ... until I discovered the cheat sheet was locked. It was distributed in the form of a PDF. But the file had security turned on, and I could not even print out the damn thing.


Well PDFUnlock came to the rescue. My file was a small one. PDFUnlock let's you break the password for free online. That's a good URL to have if you get into a bind like I Was. All right. Watch out world. I am gaining networking power as we speak.