Locking yourself out of a new Cisco router
Posted by Aaron Paxson on July 31, 2008
After purchasing your brand-new Cisco router, you power it up. When it finishes loading, you get a banner message stating to use the username of “cisco” and the password of “cisco”. It also explains how to change this password after logging in. Standard stuff….
Well, it must have been awhile since I’ve purchased a router, because Cisco has changed things just a little. You now have a ONE-TIME use of the account. That means, after logging in as the account “cisco”, it will lockout unless you change the password.
So, I login using the credentials cisco/cisco and then started working on deleting that account, and putting on my standard local user account.
I got distracted, and starting working on some email problems. When I got back, my session timed-out, and I had to login again. No problem, I said….. username=cisco… password=cisco…. Doh! Can’t login! Why??
Oh, that’s right, one time access. But wait, NOW how do I login?? I can’t change the password if i can’t login??
Well, lucky for me, I was hoping that it won’t update the startup-configuration, which it doesn’t. I reloaded the router, and I’m in!
So, bottom line…. don’t freak out if you didn’t change the password the first time. Reload the router, and change it then.
Whew! (( Aaron wipes the sweat off his brow )). Seriously, how embarrasing would that be?! Going into Rommon, and reloading the startup configuration because of a bad password, the first 5 mins of powering it on!!
