Installing Cisco SDM within Vista for use with GNS3
What is SDM....
"Security Device Manager (SDM) is a Web-based device-management tool for Cisco routers that can improve the productivity of network managers, simplify router deployments, and help troubleshoot complex network and VPN connectivity issues."
I'm currently reading Todd Lammle's CCNA (640-802). In the sixth edition the SDM is mentioned regularly. Although many people that have taken the exam recently have said the new exam hardly mentions the SDM if at all, i didn't want to miss it out of my revision plan completely so went about using it with my copy of GNS3.
I have used Packet Tracer v5 for most of the labs and hands on sections until now, but there is no way of using the SDM with packet tracer so have reverted back to GNS3 for now.
GNS3 is a great tool, but eats up a lot of your computers resource, especially when you get to doing big labs with lots of routers/switches etc.
You can download the SDM from here (you need an account with cisco): http://www.cisco.com/pcgi-bin/tablebuild.pl/sdm
What is GNS3....
GNS3 (http://www.gns3.net/) "is a graphical network simulator that allows simulation of complex networks." Its a really powerful tool, and made even better from the fact its free. Although you must use official 'paid for' versions of the Cisco IOS with it. You must also know that the SDM only comes with IOS versions 12.4 or above i believe. It can be used in demo mode, but better if you have an offical (compatible) IOS.
Why this guide may help....
Well, i have struggled for quite a while today to get this working in Vista. Google usually helps with this type of thing, but all i could find were lots of people struggling with no real answers. The best help i found was a video showing how to set it up in XP (as the site says, it is safe, dispite it being an exe -- its just a video encoded with highcompression, reseach http://www.screen-record.com/):
Instead of making this a guide, i want to show you the differences and problems i came across while following this help video in Windows Vista.
Point 1. Make sure you have an SDM compatible IOS thats v12.4 or above.
Point 2. Dont worry that in Vista your new Loopback interface will say Limited or No Connectivity. This is just because initially you wont have anything 'plugged' into it, or even on the same subnet until you link the GNS3 router interface to the loopback.
Point 3. This is the step that took me the longest time to overcome. Its a specific error message i kept getting when running Network device list.cmd, "The system cannot find the path specified". I also got an error when i tried to enter the loopback code manually from your registry "206-unable to create generic ethernet NIO". Both these errors are related to something that seemed so simple once i realised how to fix it.
The google page that helped me figure out what i was doing wrong suggested testing dynamips manually from the command prompt. This gave a similar error, but showed me that it was the lock file that was missing, not that it couldn't find dynamips-wxp.exe. So i ran dynamips manually from windows explorer AS ADMINISTRATOR (right click the file and select Run as Administrator). You need to do this after creating your loopback connection. This will create a lock file which allows you to run Network device list.cmd again properly and get the info you need to continue! :)
Point 4. Running the SDM in Vista may fail (like it did with me) on the last step. For me, it loaded the splash screen, asked me for my username and password, loaded the next screen (like it says remember to turn off popup blockers), then Java asked me for the username and password again. After this nothing.....it just sat there. I tried it in firefox and got the same. It turned out to be my copy of java wasn't compatible with SDM v2.5. I had to completely remove Java 6 Update 13 and install Java 5 Update 11. Then it worked like a dream. I aslo read that Java 6 Update 6 is ok, so i may try upgrading to this tomorrow.
Point 5. Note that Vista does not come with telnet installed. Google will help with this. I reverted to using putty as my console manager, but in vista make sure you use a version outside of program files unless you are an administrator. For example, i had to add this as my telnet path within GNS3: D:\putty.exe -telnet %h %p
Otherwise all i got was no console window loading at ALL.
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