First Things First

As mentioned earlier, the management plane is covered first in this discussion. After all, without a configured router (whether configured through the console port or through an IP address with a secure remote-access tool such as SSH), the network device is not much good without a working configuration that either an administrator or some other type of management system such as Cisco Security Manager (CSM) has put in place. (A basic Layer 2 switch with all ports in the same VLAN would be functional, but this is unlikely to be the desired configuration for that device.)