Remind me how enable secret works

[seeingeyegod]

I am a failed network engineer. That is I went to school for it, got my degree, but never could pass the CCNA (failed it 3 times) and never could find a job in my field before all the info got old and rusty in my mind. Fast forward a few years and I have a good computer job that doesn't really involve networking, but there are network job opportunities being waved in my face that I would have been a shoe in for back when I knew my stuff. So here I am studying a bit again and getting depressed remembering how much of this was second nature to me that I can't remember anymore. I just was in a sim and locked myself out of it and I want to understand what I just did.
I went into enable mode and config terminal
I typed "enable secret password"
I went back up to the main login, tried logging in with the password which I thought was "password". No dice. It also isn't blank.

What I think happened is:
Since I didn't enter a non encrypted password first, I have turned on a encrypted version of a blank password and there is no way to fix it other than physically rebooting manually since I can't get back to an enable prompt.

 

[bill001g]

You likely just mistyped it. Even if you were to have put in a enable password without the secret option the commands will just produce 2 different entries and it will prefer the secret one. The passwords are not related and if I remember right you will get warning if you try to make them the same.

If its a sim you can just wipe it, if its a real router you get to learn the process or password recovery.

The common way to test this is to telnet to the router loopback while still in enable mode. You will then be able to log into the router and then attempt the enable a second time. If it fails you can abort the telnet session and you are still at the enable prompt to try again. This is even more important when you are confining things like AAA and radius servers where many things can go wrong.