Initial Access

On a brand new ASA without an IP address configured, you connect to the console port of the ASA. In the old days, most computers had an RS-232 type serial port, and we connected from that serial port on the computer using the blue rollover cable to the console port. In current times, we have moved to USB on the computers. Part of your equipment that you should carry with you is a USB-to-serial adapter so that you can connect from your USB port to the serial blue cable, which then connects to the console port on your network device (in this case, the ASA).

At the CLI, we have access to ROM Monitor, EXEC mode (both user and privileged), configuration mode, interface configuration mode, and several others. Context-sensitive help and navigation at the CLI is similar to the router, including the functions of enable, exit, Ctrl+Z, and so on. One difference worth noting is that if you scroll through multiple pages of output, you use the letter Q (for quit) to stop scrolling through the pages of output one page at a time.

ASDM is a configuration tool that is built in to (included with) the ASA firewall family. We use ASDM to implement and verify our security policy later in this chapter. It uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to ensure secure communications and runs on a variety of Windows platforms. You can connect to up to five separate firewalls and switch between them conveniently from ASDM.