Router Identification and Banner

A router's name is referred to as the hostname . The default hostname for all Cisco routers is "Router." You can change the hostname of a router in global configuration mode by entering the hostname command. The hostname is changed with the following commands:

 Router(config)#hostname NFLD NFLD(config)# 

Notice that the hostname changed from "Router" to "NFLD" immediately after executing the command.

The banner motd command allows you to display a message-of-the-day (MOTD) banner every time you log in to the router. Even though the banner message was designed to convey day-to-day messages, it is typically used for displaying security messages for legal reasons:

 NFLD(config)#banner motd * Authorized Access Only,  All Violations Will Be Prosecuted * NFLD(config)# 

The asterisk (*) before the word "Authorized" and after the word "Prosecuted" represents the start and finish of the text to be displayed as the banner.

In this scenario, the next time you Telnet into the router, the MOTD banner will display the following message:

 Authorized Access Only, All Violations Will Be Prosecuted. User Access Verification Password: 

A description can be added to every interface using the description command. Typically, an interface description, which is limited to 80 characters , is used to describe the function of the interface, as shown in the following:

 NFLD(config)#interface s0 NFLD(config-line)#description 56K between NFLD and San Diego NFLD(config-line)# 

The next time someone views the running configuration file, she will see the following description:

 interface Serial0 description 56K connection between NFLD and San Diego ip address 138.144.2.2 255.255.255.0 encapsulation frame-relay bandwidth 2000 frame-relay lmi-type cisco