Configuring all the ports in a new switch or router can be time consuming, especially in the larger switches that have 250 ports or more. Thankfully Cisco have given us a way to speed up port configuration in newer switches. They call it the interface range command. It allows you to configure an entire blade at a time. As someone who configured switches before the command was developed, I cannot tell you how much time it saves if you routinely configure switches and routers.

Take a look at an example:

SwitchA(config)#interface range gig 1/1 – 16
This specifies ports GigabitEthernet 1/1 through GigabitEthernet 1/16

SwitchA(config-if-range)#speed 1000
Sets the speed for all ports to 1000 Mb, thus disabling speed auto-negotiation

SwitchA(config-if-range)#duplex full
Sets the duplex for the ports to full duplex rather than duplex auto-negotation (gigabit rarely has half-duplex by design)

SwitchA(config-if-range)#end
Exits configuration mode

SwitchA#wr
This command saves the config

If you want to configure dis-contiguous ports with the same configuration, try this syntax:

SwitchA(config)#int range gig1/1 , gig1/12 , gig1/36
Notice that the ports are comma separated

SwitchA(config-if-range)#speed 1000
SwitchA(config-if-range)#duplex full
SwitchA(config-if-range)#end

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