New Idea! (Unknown if working)

Well today I was talking on IRC and a buddy on there is using multiple USB NIC's on a USB hub to allow him to attach Ethernet NIC's from routers from within dynamips to a physical port to allow each router to physically connect to an external 3550 or 3560.

Well I was thinking and a random idea just dawned on me and I'm unsure rather or not its possible or what would be required for it to work. I'm guessing an application would have to be written to achieve this or it may possibly already exist.

On the machine running dynamips create multiple virtual NIC's within Linux or Windows and attach them to given VLAN's on a virtual which which uses a 2port Gigabit Intel NIC that is trunked to a 2950T and uses dot1q tunneling to transfer traffic from the same VLAN over the trunk to the physical ports. (kinda like channelized ds3's which is how i got the idea)

Each virtual NIC will have to have its own VLAN which is mapped to a port on the 2950T in the same VLAN on the switch. This could possibly allow for transparent communication from the virtual NIC which is attached to specific ports of routers in dynamips to physical ports on the 2950T.

Well I've not tested this idea at all but if you guys have any idea's to throw into the pot that might make this work or not work please feel free to post. There has to be a better way then having a shitload of nics on a single machine.

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Turgon

mgeorge wrote: »

Well today I was talking on IRC and a buddy on there is using multiple USB NIC's on a USB hub to allow him to attach Ethernet NIC's from routers from within dynamips to a physical port to allow each router to physically connect to an external 3550 or 3560.

Well I was thinking and a random idea just dawned on me and I'm unsure rather or not its possible or what would be required for it to work. I'm guessing an application would have to be written to achieve this or it may possibly already exist.

On the machine running dynamips create multiple virtual NIC's within Linux or Windows and attach them to given VLAN's on a virtual which which uses a 2port Gigabit Intel NIC that is trunked to a 2950T and uses dot1q tunneling to transfer traffic from the same VLAN over the trunk to the physical ports. (kinda like channelized ds3's which is how i got the idea)

Each virtual NIC will have to have its own VLAN which is mapped to a port on the 2950T in the same VLAN on the switch. This could possibly allow for transparent communication from the virtual NIC which is attached to specific ports of routers in dynamips to physical ports on the 2950T.

Well I've not tested this idea at all but if you guys have any idea's to throw into the pot that might make this work or not work please feel free to post. There has to be a better way then having a shitload of nics on a single machine.

Interesting idea. Any chance of a drawing so I can see exactly what you are trying to do. Not sure about the "virtual NIC which is attached to specific ports of routers in dynamips to physical ports on the 2950T". Seems to me that earlier you were proposing a trunk between your dynamips box and the switch?

liquid6

I have a server running ubuntu and have dynamips running on that. I trunk all vlans from the ubuntu server to a Cisco 3500 and then use cables to plug into 4x3560 switches. You then map your dynamip router interfaces to the dot1q interfaces F0/0 = NIO_gen_eth0.100 etc.. Then you match up the vlans that you created on the dynamips to the correct port on the 3500. It works really really well! I am ditching my whole physical lab for most of my study and using just the switches and a server running dynamips.

I wish i had a diagram and didn't have my brain fried from doing one-side VPN troubleshooting on a checkpoint for most of the night!!! I have a visio started diagramming this out so if I get some time tomorrow I'll try to finish it.

Good luck,
liquid

mgeorge

actually liquid, what you're doing is exactly what im trying to acomplish.

My initial idea was to use tap virtual interfaces assigned to dot1q vlans and use the nic that goes to the 2950T as a trunk or dot1q tunnel from the host machine that way the virtual interfaces send traffic to the tap interfaces automatically get forwarded to the 2950T and any port assigned to the vlan as the tap interface is in.

I'll try to look into this a little more to see if theirs a way it can be done cheaply and effectively, then i'll try to write a little guide for ccie lab candidates.

CCIEWANNABE

liquid6 wrote: »

I have a server running ubuntu and have dynamips running on that. I trunk all vlans from the ubuntu server to a Cisco 3500 and then use cables to plug into 4x3560 switches. You then map your dynamip router interfaces to the dot1q interfaces F0/0 = NIO_gen_eth0.100 etc.. Then you match up the vlans that you created on the dynamips to the correct port on the 3500. It works really really well! I am ditching my whole physical lab for most of my study and using just the switches and a server running dynamips.

I wish i had a diagram and didn't have my brain fried from doing one-side VPN troubleshooting on a checkpoint for most of the night!!! I have a visio started diagramming this out so if I get some time tomorrow I'll try to finish it.

Good luck,
liquid

i would love to see a visio diagram if you ever come up with one, that way it will give me a good idea of how to get the switches connected to the pc. i second the visio diagram option!!

you may even go as far as create a mini video on how to create the connection from dynamips to the real switch, kind of like the video tutorials on blindhog.net. that would be very, very useful to a lot of people!

one question, are you using quad port nics, or a usb to ethernet adapters? i think it would be cheaper to install quad port nics. we all know the adding media converters into a network is never a good thing!

liquid6

Here is a rough idea of how I have this setup. I hope to finish the visio and then post my .net files as well. Basically you are trunking all the vlans on a single port from the server to the 3750, then connecting 18 cables to the 4 3550/3560 switches. This setup is using the IPExpert layout, but you could change it for any of the workbooks.

3750 Port Router Interface Switch Port VLAN
g1/0/15 R1 F0/0 sw1 1 701
g1/0/16 R2 F0/0 sw1 2 702
g1/0/17 R4 F0/0 sw1 4 703
g1/0/18 R5 F0/0 sw1 5 704
g1/0/19 BB1 sw1 11 705
g1/0/20 R1 F0/1 sw2 1 706
g1/0/21 R6 F0/0 sw2 6 707
g1/0/22 R7 F0/0 sw2 7 708
g1/0/23 R8 F0/0 sw2 8 709
g1/0/24 R9 F0/0 sw2 9 710
g1/0/25 BB2 sw2 12 711
g1/0/26 BB3 sw2 13 712
g1/0/27 R2 F0/1 sw3 2 713
g1/0/28 R4 F0/1 sw3 4 714
g1/0/29 R5 F0/1 sw3 5 715
g1/0/30 R6 F0/1 sw4 6 716
g1/0/31 R7 F0/1 sw4 7 717
g1/0/32 R8 F0/1 sw4 8 718
g1/0/33 R9 F0/1 sw4 9 719

Let me know if you have any questions. Feel free to PM or email you want.

Cheers,
liquid

Lab Setup.jpg

Turgon

liquid6 wrote: »

Here is a rough idea of how I have this setup. I hope to finish the visio and then post my .net files as well. Basically you are trunking all the vlans on a single port from the server to the 3750, then connecting 18 cables to the 4 3550/3560 switches. This setup is using the IPExpert layout, but you could change it for any of the workbooks.

3750 Port Router Interface Switch Port VLAN
g1/0/15 R1 F0/0 sw1 1 701
g1/0/16 R2 F0/0 sw1 2 702
g1/0/17 R4 F0/0 sw1 4 703
g1/0/18 R5 F0/0 sw1 5 704
g1/0/19 BB1 sw1 11 705
g1/0/20 R1 F0/1 sw2 1 706
g1/0/21 R6 F0/0 sw2 6 707
g1/0/22 R7 F0/0 sw2 7 708
g1/0/23 R8 F0/0 sw2 8 709
g1/0/24 R9 F0/0 sw2 9 710
g1/0/25 BB2 sw2 12 711
g1/0/26 BB3 sw2 13 712
g1/0/27 R2 F0/1 sw3 2 713
g1/0/28 R4 F0/1 sw3 4 714
g1/0/29 R5 F0/1 sw3 5 715
g1/0/30 R6 F0/1 sw4 6 716
g1/0/31 R7 F0/1 sw4 7 717
g1/0/32 R8 F0/1 sw4 8 718
g1/0/33 R9 F0/1 sw4 9 719

Let me know if you have any questions. Feel free to PM or email you want.

Cheers,
liquid

It's clever but Im wondering how this arrangement might affect the switching tasks in the IPExpert layout as you don't have direct connections between switches there. Just curious as I haven't tried the dynamips thing myself.

liquid6

ah, sorry I didn't actually include those. you still have all the direct switch/switch connections, I was focusing just on the dynamips/switch portion.

after dinner I'll grab the .net file and post it.

hopefully that clarifies it...

liquid

rossonieri#1

i'd trunked a 3640 using windows-based dynamips to an old 1924 fe port using ISL - no problem.

i think the switch did not know whether there are non VLAN-tagged traffic so it still transparent - but it did recognize the tagged some because when i change or disable certain switch vlan port the traffic get stop.

even better? use taps - single NIC multiple taps directly to cloud (physical switch/network). so the cloud will have these taps attached to it.

i'm wondering if you guys have a working tap interface using wireless NIC?
i need to create a bridge using my wireless NIC with taps interface - so i can connect dynamips on my laptop to my wired LAN?

so probably like :

brctl addbr br0
brctl addif br0 wlan0 -> doesnt work
brctl addif br0 tap0
brctl addif br0 tap1

i cant get it work - but it works using the wired NIC.

kpjungle

Are you guys having problems with multiple USB ethernet cards on Linux as well, or is it only windows? I only purchased one so far, so I dont see any problems with it on my linux box, even when its connected through a USB hub. Its just that Quad port cards are really expensive.