How to understand the server room?

Question

System administration

Good afternoon, in general, I'm a novice system administrator, I came to the office, and unfortunately it turned out that the previous administrator was on sick leave and there was no way to see him, he blocked the campaign)
So, there are cisco 2960 catalyst in the switching closet. Everything is confusing, the markings on the cables do not match reality, only the head of the IT department has access to the cisco, in another city, they do not give a password for connecting via the console. What can be done in such a case?

Answer 1

Everything is confusing, the markings on the cables do not match reality, only the head of the IT department has access to the cisco, in another city, they do not give a password for connecting via the console. What can be done in such a case?
quit.
Although I don’t see anything super complicated, especially since there are clearly few users.

Answer 2

Friend, believe me, it can be much worse.
You take and put things in order.
Be sure to write everything down.

Answer 3

Take pictures of everything, sign cables and ports. Go out on a day off and unravel. Do not touch anything without checking access.

Answer 4

- rewrite the brands of all devices and google what it is
- take a picture of everything in the most detailed way
- go out on a day off, and slowly deal with each wire - from where, where, it will probably be immediately clear why.
The cisco has several levels of access, let them give the most minimal

Answer 5

only the head of the IT department in another city has access to the tsiska, they do not give a password for connecting via the console.

Get fired, what else to do. An admin without access to equipment is nonsense. They do not want to give access - let them work from another city.

Answer 6

How did you get on in general? Did you talk to the global admins about "what do they want to see from you and what should you do"? Or did your "uncle of your mother's friend" bring you in, saying that we need an admin instead of the sick one?
If the first, then contact the globalists, let them set tasks more clearly and allocate rights, funds, etc. for them.
If the latter, then either try to make friends with the globals or quit, tk. any cant hang on you and they will be right.

Answer 7

to mark the wires correctly, access to the boob is not needed. For example, you can turn off all the devices to the maximum, and then turn them on one by one. and see which light is on.

Answer 8

What is the task? Understand the wires?
During non-working hours (based on the harmfulness and the need to not pass the probationary period, you can also during working hours):
1) Track all cables from the servers, mark them (if the servers are in the same area as the switching)
2) By installing nmap on the working laptop, connect the laptop to the switch
3) Disconnect all cables, except for the server cables, marked in paragraph 1
4) Turn on one at a time, running nmap on the entire subnet in turn, determining the IP for the connected cord, mark the cord.
Repeat iteration as needed