Wall-mounting a large router

I need some help here. Looks like I didn't put enough thought into equipment purchasing, and that combined with a smaller space than expected requires that I find some way to mount something to a wall that isn't intended to mount to a wall.

I'm working with a telephone closet that's not deep at all (maybe a foot at most), but I have plenty of surface area to work with. I'm trying to find some way to attach to this surface a Cisco 2921 Integrated Services Router.

Cisco is no help to me (I was on the phone for an hour this morning getting bounced around to at least 8 different people). I totally understand that this device was not meant to be attached to a wall, and that's my fault. I'm just trying to figure out if there's any way to do it. Hell, I'm fine with setting it on its side on a ledge of some sort if that's what has to be done. I just need to get it figured out and soon.

I won't be doing the physical installation, so it doesn't have to be something that I'm capable of doing

Any ideas?

Seems simple enough.

It looks like the router has threaded holes on its sides - is this correct? Just use some L (angle) tabs. The tabs screw to the router and the wall. You can have them facing inward (mount to wall first) our outward (doesn't matter if you mount to wall or router first). The router can then sit flat against the wall.

Unfortunately I don't have the router near me, and it's oddly difficult to find good photos of the router online...

You shouldn't just leave it on its side as there are vent holes which will get blocked.

That router should come with a rackmount kit. Get some L brackets, put those onto the wall, hang the router by the rackmount ears off the brackets and screw or bolt it in. That'd be the cheapest option and not risk damaging the router.

Sort of like this. The LLLLL bit is the L bracket. Make sure its rated to handle something as heavy as a 2921 hanging off it though!

Big photo

That's how the guy installed all the switches, so I would have thought he'd try that on the router too. I think he stopped because there wasn't any mounting stuff included in the box...


Yeah, I saw that one, but it doesn't show much...

It should be included according to Cisco. I've not used a 2921 but the 2951s and 2911s I've used have always come with the kit in the box.

The side of rackmount gear is uninteresting so nobody photographs it

Rackmount installation guide for a 2921

You could also resort to an Ikea solution: LackRack.

Interesting! I didn't see that in the box.

But the problem with those and with the mounting holes in general is that they're in a rectangular pattern, not square. The switches were in a square, so rotating the mounting brackets was possible, even though the switches weren't intended for wall mounting either. It doesn't look like I'd be able to rotate the mounting brackets even if they were included...


Heh, I like it, but I'd then have to saw the legs off and find a way to mount the table to the wall. I'd rather just mount the router directly

Use only two holes on each bracket Matt. It'll be plenty strong enough with 2 -4 brackets used. Then in the wall, use toggle anchors, or hit a stud if you can. Nothing is going to bring that thing down off the wall.

I was thinking of putting L brackets on the wall and then hanging the router off those by the rackmount ears which you attach normally. That way it doesn't matter what arrangement the actual attachment holes are on the router because you only care that the rackmount ears will fit which they should do as its a Cisco part.

Ohhh, I see what you're saying now. That sounds like a pretty good idea... Now I just need to see if the brackets are included...

Well, if you already have rackmount equipment, and you can find the ears, then you're good to go, but I thought I would point out that most Cisco equipment I've worked with has had the ability to mount the ears on the device rotated 90° specifically so that you can mount it directly on a wall.

Yeah, and that's what I got with the switches, but as you can see in the guide Trevor linked to, the brackets are rectangular.


I'd be fine with two holes, but the brackets are rectangular, so wouldn't that mean only one hole would be usable?

The 2921 and 2951 have a rectangular arrangement for the rackmount attachment holes and doesn't support turning the brackets 90 degrees. The smaller 1U 2900s do let you do that however.

That's what a drill is for Matt. But even a single hole on 4 brackets would be plenty.

When I made my initial suggestion, I assumed you didn't have the rack-mont parts, so I specifically didn't mention using/repurposing them. Lots of other angles available at the hardware store though.

Assuming you have the ears, I'd look at using this:

http://www.racksolutions.co.uk/server-racks/wall-mount-racks/wall-racks.html

Ooo, those look perfect. Damn, now I need to drive into the city tomorrow to see if the mounting brackets are included...

Keep in mind that 2 steel L brackets from the hardware store will probably cost you $3 and work perfectly well for a single router as Trevor suggested.

Obviously.

If I were doing the job for myself I'd go to the local hardware store. However if I tried that at work, our group IT manager would probably pop a nut given the value of the Cisco CPE that it would be supporting.

I'm curious as to why you've got a 2921 though. What WAN connection do you have? Any features enabled?

Oh, if billing someone else for it, just go the dedicated vertical rack like Andy suggested. I thought this was for Matt's own personal install.

Honestly in the end I didn't pick the model. For the WAN we'll be using two 50/10Mbps Comcast cable connections.


If I had that much money I'd buy a Xoom.

Ah. There are better options out there if you're just doing that and the WAN side presented as just regular ethernet but as it wasn't your decision there isn't much you can do about it. What feature set do you have enabled for the 2921? You going to have to configure it or do you have a Cisco person?

Nah. You'd buy an Xoom, Antrix and the two docks separately

The Xoom is just stupid. $800 so its even more than an iPad and to enable WiFi, you have to subscribe for at least 1 month to a data plan! Okay, the feature set isn't the same when compared to an iPad but most consumers aren't going to look that closely at the specs.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to configure it myself and I'm a little nervous because I haven't dealt with this level of networking before

Fortunately I don't want to do anything extremely fancy. I want to do whatever I can to make the network solid and if you have tips on how to secure it against a dumb kid plugging in a router incorrectly that would be great. I'll be doing some QoS to limit the P2P stuff too.

One thing I'm not certain about is the wireless access points. The customer and the architect didn't listen to me very well and decided that, in the four floors of living space, they wanted a total of seven APs. How on earth do I configure that? Should the all have the same SSID? Should they all be on the same channel or different ones? Should I just disconnect half of them and not tell anyone?

Same SSID, same security, different channels. Assuming they all connect to the same LAN, this allows clients to roam between access points.

That's so good to know! I've had Lack tables around forever, and never noticed it is standard rack-size wide!

I'm a Cisco person and there are others on this forum so just post. Go download Cisco CCP and ignore anything that tells you to use SDM. The basic configuration that only does routing out a single WAN connection is what you want to get going first and that shouldn't be difficult. There are best practice guides for locking down Cisco routers which you should follow.

Do you know what feature set is install? And do they have a SMARTnet maintenance contract? No contract = No support = No software updates.


Are they Cisco APs? If you've got that many then they should have gotten a WLC as well to control them all. I assume that they all connect to ethernet as a backhaul and you don't need to do bridging?

Thanks, I really appreciate that.


Unfortunately I don't know what you mean by feature set. Like I said, I haven't set one of these up before. Nothing special was ordered so I suppose it's standard. And no, there's no contract.


Are they Cisco APs? If you've got that many then they should have gotten a WLC as well to control them all. I assume that they all connect to ethernet as a backhaul and you don't need to do bridging?[/quote] They're all ethernet and no, no bridging I think.

When making sure no two waps on the same channel are close to each other, also consider waps on adjacent floors. Usually, three different channels will be enough. So, use channels as far as possible from each other. We are using ch. 1, 6, 11. That leaves you room for little adjustments later on.

For example, wap in my office corridor is on CH. 6. Because of the radio weirdness occurring in old buildings, my laptop happens to receive a stronger signal from both the floor above me and the floor below me. Both waps generating such signals happened to be on ch 11 (nobody tought that all concrete, thik walls of a 3 century old building would allow the signal to pass, and we were all wrong) and produced destructive interference. I could move one wap to ch 9 and the other on ch 12, solving the problem without creating interferences with other waps around the two involved.

Ew. No contract may be an issue as you've no access to updates at all without one. People use to exploit the Cisco download site by buying a support contract for the cheapest possible device and then using the access granted by that to download everything they needed but Cisco finally implemented contract specific download restrictions at the start of the year.

Cisco being Cisco, you don't get everything just by buying the box. IOS is licensed based on features and you need to get a license which means $$$. The old system was that each IOS version had an associated feature set file and you just downloaded the feature set that you needed. The new system for ISR G2 routers like this 2921 is that you just download a massive universal image and unlock the various feature sets by typing in a device specific code.

Buy a license for say the Security feature set. Cisco will give you a Product Activation Key. You go to cisco.com via web browser or directly on the router if you've already got internet connectivity and type in the PAK, SN# and PID of the device. That'll give you a Software Activation license which needs to be installed to actually turn on that feature set.

I assume that you'd want at least the Security feature set so you should check into what was actually ordered for this router before you trek over there.

The version of IOS you'll want is 15.0M and nothing with a T in it. M = Mainline aka the "stable" branch. T = Technology and its where new features get added along with new hardware support so its sometimes a bit flakey with unusual bugs.

Are they Cisco APs?

Oh. Its probably in the box but just in case, download the USB Console port drivers and install them on your laptop. You can get it from Cisco.com with just a registered account and no service contract.

Get a TFTP server for your laptop as well. Bring a spare CF card, CF reader and a USB stick. You shouldn't need a USB serial adapter as its got the USB console feature but its up to you if you want to be prepared.

You got any WICs, PVDMs, NMs or ISMs in this 2921? They're all different types of expansion module.

The APs are Cisco, as are the switches.

There are no expansion cards, though there might be in the future... just a switch for connecting the four lines running to each floor...

The advantage of a WLC is that you get centralised management, better security and more features since all the APs act as basic radios and tunnel everything back to the WLC. Make sure to configure/upgrade the APs before you mount them! You powering them using a PSU or POE?

Not sure how viable this would be for you but if you can then you should get all the hardware together before its mounted so you can work out how to configure it. Mistakes at this point would be easy to correct and wouldn't mean you trekking around the building trying to access a AP or switch thats embedded in the wall or ceiling.

I would have put a EtherSwitch module into the 2921 and skipped the extra switch in the wiring closet that the router is in. This would mainly be for space saving reasons rather than management as the ESW is managed separately even though its inserted into a router.

It'll be a good learning experience for you. Always good to have Cisco experience on the resume/CV

I've gotten the exact same 1U wall bracket from their outlet in US:

http://www.racksolutions.com/

We have 3 of their 42U racks as well. Not super-pricey and they have been great to deal with.

Jim

In my experience, Cisco products come with a year's support or so, and that includes software updates. It's possible that that's changed, though.

I actually sent out an email to the guy in charge of ordering components to get a 4-port EtherSwitch card. Model EHWIC-4ESG, I think.


Ooo, very cool. I'll have to remember that for the future.


They're mounted but accessible. They're powered by PSU. How do I access the APs for configuration?


Unfortunately everything is in place and installed, but fortunately there isn't anything that's difficult to access.


While I'm nervous about it I'm also interested in getting in there and working on it. It'll be fun