What cable to connect the switches?

Question

Computer networks

Began to study to work with the cisco equipment. And on the "network" that the authors of the course propose to "create" in a packet tracer, some switches are connected by a crossover cable (dashed line) and a router, workstations and servers are connected by a straight line (solid line). Is this important when working with real hardware? Will it work with direct? By what rules is it decided which cable to connect the equipment?

Answer 1

The rule is easy to remember - we connect devices operating at the same level of the OSI model with a crossover, the rest with a direct one. A switch with a crossover switch, a router with a crossover computer, and a switch with a router are direct. Well, most modern equipment supports auto MDI-X, will work with both types of cables

Answer 2

A crossover cable is mainly needed for old equipment, there are still many places in Cisco where such a rudiment remains.
On modern devices, it doesn't matter anymore whether it's cross or not.
The rule is simple - usually such a port is separately marked, but I forgot the exact marking, this Riley is outdated, but you will understand if you see it.

Answer 3

Cisco Packet Tracer still has such a feature, but it is more for understanding the physics of the network than for functionality. In reality, you can connect any cable - it will work.
Even in the CPT they say there are glitches. I myself have not reached this point, but it is not for nothing that the SDSM course with dynamic routing is being shown in GNU Tree and not in CPT