Cisco Router & Switch Password/Reset procedures

Routers

The short and skinny on recovering Cisco router passwords can be summarized into 11 steps as follows:

1. Boot router
2. Send Break command
3. Set configuration register to bypass NVRAM
4. Reload/reboot router
5. Say no to initial setup dialog questions
6. Enter enable mode
7. Copy startup-config running-config
8. Set passwords from global configuration mode
9. Reset configuration register to load startup-config from NVRAM
10. Copy running-config startup-config
11. Reload/reboot router

In short, this process bypasses the startup-config on boot and therefore no passwords are set.

Note: You can also run show startup-config at step 6 to read the clear-text password.

Switches

The short and skinny on recovering Cisco switch password can be summarized into 12 steps as follows:

1. Boot switch
2. Send Break command or you may have to use Mode button on switch
3. Load flash initialization and helper
4. Rename flash:config.text flash:config.old
5. Reboot or use boot command
6. Say no to initial setup dialog
7. Enter enable mode
8. Rename flash:config.old flash:config.text
9. Copy flash:config.text system:running-config
10. Set passwords from global configuration mode
11. Copy running-config startup-config
12. Reload/reboot switch

In short, this process boots the switch without a configuration and therefore no passwords are set.

Note: You can also run show flash:config.text at step 4 to read the clear-text password.

The previous procedures do not detail the password recovery/reset procedure but are a summary of the steps performed.