All language subtitles for 11. Roll Over Cable

A rollover cable is a special cable used to connect

to the consoles of networking devices.

It allows you to connect from the serial port on your PC or laptop

to the console of a router or switch.

So if you've got a serial port or COM port on your PC

you can connect directly to the console of a router or switch using a rollover cable.

However a lot of modern day PC's don�t have serial ports

so you�ll need to get a USB to serial port converter

which has a USB connection on 1 side and a DB9 male connector on the other side.
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This would allow you to connect DB9 female console cable to your PC
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with either a Rj-45 connector on the other side or another DB9 connector.
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Most Cisco switches and routers use an Rj-745 connector
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but you may come across some devices from other vendors such as HP
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that use a DB9 connector for the console port.
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So a DB9 serial would connect to your PC and either an Rj-45 or DB9 serial
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would be connected to the console of the networking device that you want to configure
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in a rollover cable all pins are inverted or rolled over.
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So pin 1 is connected to pin 8, pin 2 is connected to pin 7, 3 to 6
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and so forth and so on until you get to pin 8 which is connected to pin 1.
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You could use a standard Cat5 or Cat6 cable as a rollover cable
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and then just change the pin outs on the ends from straight through to rollover but
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typically this is not required as most networking devices are ship with console cables.
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This video has explained a lot about Ethernet and data flows, in the next video
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we'll look at how traffic is forwarded by hubs, bridges, switches, and routers.