Catalyst Switch Password Reset in Cisco

A catalyst switch is the type of fixed-configuration switch. These switches are sometimes called managed switches. In order to give the finest application experience, the highest levels of security, the most accurate control and management of the network, and the greatest scalability, they are created to deliver the most comprehensive collection of functionality. Managed switches are hence frequently used as core switches in smaller networks or as access switches in extremely large networks.

Advanced manageability and customization are available with catalyst switches. The switches can be configured using a serial console, telnet, or Secure Shell.  The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) enables the measurement of traffic flows as well as the monitoring of various situations.

Following are steps to reset the password on Cisco catalyst 2950 series switch. But this procedure is same for all series of catalyst switch of Cisco.

Steps to Reset Password of Cisco Catalyst Switch: 

Step 1: First, make sure that you have connect serial console port to any device which have terminal emulator for configuring them. In these steps, I used PuTTY as a terminal emulator.

Step 2: Press MODE button for few seconds, and you see a massage below on your terminal application. and Your display on your terminal application should look like this. switch: 

Step 3: After that, Enter these commands into the terminal application.

switch: flash_init
switch: load_helper
switch: dir flash:

switch: rename flash:config.text flash:config.text.old
switch: boot

Step 4: Get into the privilege prompt.

Switch>enable
Switch#rename flash:config.text.old flash:config.text
Switch#copy flash:config.text system:running-config

Step 5: Get into the global config prompt.

Switch#config terminal
Switch(config)#enable secret <Password>

Step 6: Return to Privilege mode and save your configuration.

Switch(config)#exit
Switch#write

Here, Write command is save modified configuration in config.text file and after that you can configure this switch by using updated password.