How to configure brand-new ASA firewall

GNS3 is almost and always giving its magical power to run most of the network devices such as routers, switches, and firewalls. Actual it is not an easy task to explain what’s happen and the algorithmic functioning at a software level platform to work those devices and save the configuration. However as everything cannot give 100% efficiency, the GNS3 has some boundaries to configure the certain level of parameters. Today we are going to talk about dealing with real ASA physical firewall as unboxing a brand new 5505 Cisco ASA firewall. On the other hand, the ASA firewall in your office may not function properly due to the ASA image crashed. Then you have to upload a correct firmware version to the ASA’s flash to solve the issue. Let’s see how the process going on.

After powering up the firewall, it will boot up automatically. But it will not come to enable mode until you install the correct IOS file. Let’s find out what are the requirements.

Plug your laptop into the console port with a console cable.
One port should be occupied to connect another PC which can run TFTP server. Here in our case, we selected 0/3 port and TFTP server IP address configured as 10.20.20.44/24.

After getting the console session to the firewall, it will come to rommon mode through CLI. Then you have to upload the boot image into the ASA flash.

rommon> !configure the port which connect my TFTP server via port 0/3

>interface Ethernet 0/3

>address 10.20.20.1

>server 10.20.20.44

>file asa842-k8.bin

>tftpdnld

After entering the ‘tftpdnld’ command, firewall downloads the image file and upload into ASA firewall’s flash. Then you can view the enable mode and then access the global configuration mode. Go through How to build a permanent ASA Firewall at yourhome for Cisco Labs blog post to learn how to install ASDM. If you have any question or doubts regards to unboxing ASA, please don’t hesitate to comment below. Cheers!