SDM (Security Device Manager)

SDM stands for security device manager. SDM can use HTTP (non-secure web surfing), but we should use HTTPS (secure web surfing) for security purpose. The information that the SDM need is

(1)    User name and password of privilege Level 15 (also called enable mode, it is the highest privilege level on Cisco devices). By doing this we actually create a user account on the switch or router.

(2)    Assign a Domain name. It’s like a web address www.cisco.com, it is used when we generate encryption keys OR we say that it is used to generate encryption certificate.

3^rd # ip domain-name www.cisco.com

(3)    Generate keys for encryption

       3^rd # crypto key generate rsa general-keys   (after the command, specify the size of the key)

Note:  if we change the router name or ip-domain name after creating the encryption keys then we need to regenerate the encryption keys to match their name with the new router name OR new domain name. 

(4)    Enable HTTP server and HTTPS server.

            3^rd # ip http server (use port 80/tcp)

            3^rd # ip http secure-server (use port 443/tcp)

(5)    Configure HTTP and HTTPS access, and configure the use of local database.

                     3^rd # ip http authentication local

(6)    Configure the vty line to use the local database

            3^rd # line vty 0 4

            3^rd # login local     

<cr> stands for carriage return/create, it will just prompt me for whatever the information it needs.