7/27/2018 Cisco Router Boot Sequence, Cisco Router POST (Power On Self Test)

Cisco Router Boot Sequence, Cisco Router POST (Power On

External Resources
Self Test)

Basic Networking When a Cisco router boots up, it performs a series of steps, called the router
TCP/IP boot sequence, to test the hardware and load the necessary software.

IPv6 Cisco router boot sequence consists of the following steps:

CCNA
1. The router performs a POST (Power On Self Test). The POST (Power On
CCNA Security Self Test) tests the hardware to verify that all components of the device are
operational and present. For example, the POST checks for the different
Security
interfaces on the router. The POST is stored in and run from ROM (read-only
Windows 2003 memory).
Windows 2008
2. The bootstrap program (The bootstrap is a program in ROM that is used to
GNU/Linux execute programs) checks the Configuration Register value to find where to
load the IOS. The default value of configuration register is 0x2102
(hexadecimal value). The configuration register value 0x2102 indicates that the
router should load Cisco IOS Operating System software image from Flash
memory and load the startup configuration with a console speed of 9600 baud
rate. The bootstrap looks for and loads the Cisco IOS software from flash if the
configuration register value is 0x2102.

The Bootstrap program is responsible for initializing hardware and finding

where IOS program is located and then loading IOS image. By default, the IOS
software is loaded from flash memory in all Cisco routers. Other possible
location of the IOS image is a TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) server,
configured in a computer).

If the Bootstrap program is not able to find a valid IOS image, it will act as
ROM Monitor. ROM Monitor is capable of providing a command-line
environment that can be used to perform certain configuration tasks, such as
downloading IOS image using TFTP, recovering a lost password, changing the
configuration register value etc.

3. The IOS software looks for a valid configuration file stored in NVRAM. This
file is called startup-config.

4. If a Startup Configuration (startup-config) file is present in NVRAM, the router

will load and apply the configuration commands in Startup Configuration
(startup-config) file. If a valid Startup Configuration (startup-config) file is not
in NVRAM, IOS will display System Configuration setup.

5. Once the startup-config configuration is loaded, IOS will present CLI

interface in User mode.

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