How to Enable a Port on a Cisco Switch

Need to enable a port on a Cisco switch? Look no further!

To begin you need to know what the name of the port is that you want to enable on the switch. This name or Port ID can be found by using the following command.

#show interface status

This command will provide a list of your ports by ID.

For this example, we will use the port Gi1/10 for our switch.

Next, we need to enter privileged EXEC mode on the switch in order to issue the following commands.

To do this, type one of the following commands.

#enable

or

#en

Now, we need to enter configuration command followed by terminal to enter global configuration mode.

#configure terminal 

or

#conf t

Next, we tell the switch which interface to configure.

(config)#interface Gi1/10

Now you can assign the selected port to a VLAN. You can use whatever VLAN number you would like but for our example we will use VLAN 10.

(config-if)#switchport access vlan 10

Lastly, we want to bring this port (interface) up or enable it. To do use one of the following commands.

(config-if)#no shutdown

or

(config-if)#no shut

That’s it. Your port should now be enabled and assigned to the VLAN you choose. You can to this to any other available port on your switch. If you want to add other ports to this same network then simply repeat this process using your other port ID’s and assign them to the same VLAN.

If you would like to check on the status of the port (interface) that you just set up use the following commands.

Exit config mode by performing one of the following methods.

Use Ctrl-Z to exit configuration mode.

or

Type “exit” until you are out of configuration mode.

(If you followed this example you will likely need to enter the exit command two times in a row.)

Lastly, we can now show the status of the port(interface) you choose by entering the following command. We are going to stick with our example port for this command.

#show run interface Gi1/10