6.3 Configuration Methods
6.3.3 Password configuration methods

You can secure your system by using passwords to restrict access. Passwords can be established both on individual lines and in the privileged EXEC mode.

  • line console 0 -- establishes a password on the console terminal
  • line vty 0 4 -- establishes password protection on incoming Telnet sessions
  • enable password -- restricts access to privileged EXEC mode
  • enable secret password (from the system configuration dialog to set up global parameters -- uses a Cisco proprietary encryption process to alter the password character string

You can further protect passwords from being displayed by using the service password-encryption command. This encryption algorithm does not match the Data Encryption Standard (DES).