Cisco Systems 700 User Manual 2

CHAPTER

2

Using Profiles with Cisco 700
Series Routers

A profile is a set of configuration parameters associated with ports on the router or WAN
devices.

This chapter contains the following sections:

• Profile Overview

• System and Profile Parameters

• Creating and Modifying Profiles

• Incoming Calls

• Outgoing Calls

Profile Overview

There are two modes in which you can set parameters, the system mode and the profile
mode. System mode parameters affect the configuration on a global level. Profiles are sets
of local parameters. Profile mode parametersaffect how the router handles the connection
to a device.

You do not have to reconfigure the router every time you connect to a different device.
Instead of using one set of configuration parameters for all devices, you can use different
profiles to communicate with a variety of devices.

For example, you can create a user-defined profile called 2500 that contains the parameters
to be used when communicating with a Cisco 2500 series router over the WAN. You can
customize your Cisco 700 series router to maintain up to 17 user-defined profiles. Profiles
are saved in the Cisco 700 series router nonvolatile RAM (NVRAM).

Using Profiles with Cisco 700 Series Routers 2-1

System and Profile Parameters

In addition to user-defined profiles, there are three permanent profiles, Internal, LAN, and
Standard. The Internal profile stores parameters used to communicate between the LAN
and WAN ports on the Cisco 700 series router. The LAN profile stores parameters that
configure the LAN port on the router. The Standard profile is the default profile. If
authentication is not required and the destination device you are connecting to does not
have a user-defined profile, the router uses the Standard profile.

Profiles and Connections

Profiles are either active or inactive. An active profile creates a virtual connection to the
remote device associated with the profile. A virtual connection is a connection without
physical channels. After creating a virtual connection, an on-demand call can be made to
the associated remote device to establish a physical connection.

A physical connection is a dynamically created pipeline of packets from the Cisco 700
series router to a switch on the WAN. All connections are associated with the profile that
defines the configuration of the connection.

Virtual and physical connections behave similarly; the difference is that physical
connections forward packets to the WAN.Virtual connections monitor packet traffic on the
LAN until a demand filter “sees” that a packet is destined for the WAN and initiates a call
to the switch, opening the physical connection. Once the call is established, the virtual
connection becomes an active physical connection, and the packets move through the
pipeline.

System and Profile Parameters

The system is composed of both system mode parameters, user-defined profiles, and
permanent profiles. System mode parameters can be changed only in system mode. The
prompt indicates you are in system mode by displaying nothing or the router name. An
example of the prompt is shown below:

Router_name>

If you are in profile mode, the profile name appears on the prompt, separated from the
system name by a colon (:). An example of the prompt is shown below:

Router_name:Profile>

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Cisco700 Series Router Configuration Guide

All profiles are based on the profile template and inherit the system-level values. When you
create a new profile, its default values are taken from the profile template.

System Mode Parameter Set

System mode parameters affect the router as a system. Table 2-1 lists the system
parameters.

Table 2-1 System Parameter Set

Caller ID parameters Call waiting PPP
Date and time Country group Screen length
Directory number(s) Address age time Screen echo
Delay time Local and remote access SNMP
Forwarding mode Phone 1 and 2 SPIDs
Multidestination dialing PPP client password Switch type
Numbering plan PPP client secret System password
Patterns Voice priority Power Source 1 detect
Passthru Compression System name
PPP authentication

1 PPP = Point-to-Point Protocol
2 SNMP = Simple Network Management Protocol
3 SPID = service profile identifier

System Mode Parameter Set

1

parameters

2

parameters

3

Profile Mode Parameter Set

Changesmadetoprofilemodeparametersinsystemmodeaffecttheprofiletemplate.When
a profile is created, it inherits the matching system mode parameters from the profile
template. Any changes to parameters in profile mode apply only to that profile. Changes
made to profile parameters in system mode are stored in the profile template. When you use
the set user command to create a user-defined profile, the default parameters for the new
profile are taken from system mode.

Using Profiles with Cisco 700 Series Routers 2-3