- During this video, you'll start to find your way around Packet Tracer and see how to create a basic network simulation. To start, open the 1.1.1 Packet Tracer Introduction.pka file. This will launch Packet Tracer and prompt you to log in to Network Academy. Once Packet Tracer is open and you're logged in, you will see this overlay window. You'll need to review this during this activity. So select the top chat box to keep it on the screen. You can move it around the screen so it doesn't get in the way. At the bottom left hand corner of the screen, you'll see the icons which represent the different devices, components, and connections you'll use to create your networks. Each icon in the top row has a set of connected component icons on the right hand side. Select the end devices icon then individually drag and drop three PC icons into the main network design area. As they appear you'll see, they're given unique names. Now select the network devices icon. You want to add a 2960 switch to your prototype network. So select the switches icon from the row beneath the network devices icon. This displays the available switches. Drag and drop the 2960 switch icon into the main network design area. To connect the network elements, select the connections icon, then select the copper straight through cable type. When you click on this, you'll see a no entry sign to signify you've activated it. To assign the required cable type to the PC select the device image. Here PC0 has been selected and the drop down menu appears. Select FastEthernet0. This adds the cable to the PC. Then you need to connect the cable to the switch. Select FastEthernet0/1. Repeat these steps to connect PC1 and PC2 to the 2960-24TT Switch0. You will need to add these two FastEthernet0/2 and FastEthernet0/3 respectively. When you've connected all three PCs, your prototype network will look like this. Each cable connection will have green triangles at each end. Packet Tracer lets you check your input and confirm your entries are correct. To do this select the check results button in the Packet Tracer overlay window. At the moment, you'll see these assessment items. Don't worry about all the incorrect statuses you haven't configured the devices yet. Close this window to return to the Packet Tracer screen. If at any time you want to save your network, select file save as PKZ on the primary navigation bar. Then give it a name and follow the normal process to save a form. Select the PC0 image. This opens the configuration window for this component. Select the config tab. Change the PC display name to PC-A. Then select the FastEthernet0 button. Add 192.168.1.1 as the IP address and 255.255.255.0 as the Subnet Mask. Then close this window using the X in the top right hand corner. Then follow the same steps to change the name of PC1 to PC-B add 192.168.1.2 as the IP address and the same Subnet Mask as before. And do the same to change the name of PC2 to PC-C add 192.168.1.3 as the IP address and the same Subnet Mask as before as well. Now, if you select the check results button in the Packet Tracer overlay window, you'll see these assessment items to confirm the status is correct for each one. If any of your results show is incorrect, you should go back through the steps and check you've created the network in the right way. It's important for this activity that the device names have the same syntax as the instructions. Select the simulation button to change the simulation mode. This opens the simulation panel. Select the edit filters button, select the /none button in the simulation panel to clip all the selections in the edit filters window. Select the IPv4 tab in the edit filters window and tick the check boxes for ARP and ICMP then close the edit filters window. Select the simple PDU icon on the secondary navigation bar. Move your cursor to the display area and select PC-A to establish the source. Then select PC-C to establish the destination. When you've done this, you'll see two colored envelopes next to PC-A. One envelope is ICMP and the other is ARP. You can also see these represented in the simulation panel. You use the play controls in the simulation panel to see the connections working. These run the simulation and let you control the speeds using the bar underneath the controls. Select the play button to see the connections you've created. As the simulation plays, watch the path of the ICMP and ARP envelopes. When the maximum number of events has been reached a buffer full message appears. You can select view previous events to continue the simulation. Select the reset simulation button in the simulation panel. You'll see that the ARP envelope no longer appears. Although this has reset the simulation, it doesn't clear any configuration settings or dynamic table entries like entries. The ARP request isn't necessary to complete the Ping because the PC-A already has the Mac address in the ARP table. Now select the catcher forward button. You'll see the ICMP envelope move from the source PC to the switch and then stop. The capture/forward and capture/back button move forward and back through the stimulation one step at a time. To end the simulation select the power cycle device button. You'll see a warning message telling you that any configuration changes you've made will be lost. Select yes, in the warning message box. Now you can see both the ICMP and ARP envelopes again. The configuration changes haven't been saved and the dynamic table entries like the ARP and the Mac ones have been cleared. Select the real time button to access simulation mode and allow the network to converge. Then when the network has converged, select the simulation button to enter the simulation mode again. Select the auto capture/play button in the simulation panel to repopulate the ARP table on the PCs. Select view previous events in the buffer full warning message box. Select the inspect icon, which looks like a magnifying glass on the secondary navigation bar. Then place the magnifying over PC-A and select PC-A, which shows you the ARP table for PC-A. You can see PC-A has an ARP destination entry for PC-C. View the ARP tables for PC-B and PC-C as well. You'll notice that PC-B does not have an ARP entry while PC-C does. This shows you that the communication between PC-A and PC-C created the entry on the ARP table. This is the way the computer remembers who it communicated with and refers to it the next time it wants to communicate with the same device again. Select the select icon on the secondary navigation bar. Then select PC-A. This opens the PC-A configuration window, select the desktop tab then select the command prompt icon. Type in the command arp -a and press enter. This shows you the ARP table from the desktop view. Close the PC-A configuration window. If you want to, you can repeat the process using the command arp -a and enter to see the ARP tables for PC-B and PC-C. You can find out more through the Packet Tracer tutorials. Select help, then tutorials on the primary toolbox. This opens a popup window where you can select the tutorials you want to look at.