Best platform for gns3 lab.

I'm using a lab at my local community college, but it's becoming a pain since evrytime I show up, somebody has been in before me and screwed up something like deleting the IOS images. After spending most of my time just re-establishing connectivity across the routers, I've decided to go the virtual lab route.
Gns3 is awesome: I'm able to integrate my lab routers not only with my physical PC, but also with other virtual machines running on VMWare workstation. All on my humble laptop. Fantastic.
My question is: What have you guys come up with as far as the ideal platform to use? In the physical lab at school we have 2800s which are not supported in Gns3. I tried to load various IOS advanced ip services images on the range of hardware in Gns3, but with no luck. I tried the IOS image from the 2800 routers in school, whch obviously didn't work, and then tried every other legal advanced services IOS I could find using my guest account at cisco. The most promising setup was a 7200, but I just found out that the image does not support cbac.
Any ideas?

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mikej412

Dynamips is the actual emulator, and it runs MIPS code. But rather than track down the Cisco routers with MIPS processors, you can see if GNS3 installed the Dynagen all_config_options.txt file in the sample labs directory. That lists the supported routers and models (26xx, 26xxXM, 2691, 3620, 3640, 366x, 17xx, 37xx, 7200)

kalebksp

I generally use 3725s with a 12.4T Advanced Enterprise IOS. It's a pretty big IOS, I don't know how many instances you could run on a laptop.

Your best bet would be to use the Search by Feature on Cisco Feature Navigator to find a router and IOS that supports the features you need.

mattrgee

I'm currently using a 2610xm and a couple of 1700's to act as dumb routers for end to end testing and it does the job.

ColbyG

I use 3640s almost exclusively. Occassionaly I'll run into something they don't support, like DMVPN and AToM. In cases like that I switch to 7200s.

keenon

kalebksp wrote: »

I generally use 3725s with a 12.4T

I agree. I use it in my main lab.

In the smaller labs I run 26xx, 3640 and 7200. Most of these you can find decent versions that run on 64 or 96mb ram. So you could put a few or several routers online without super powerful machine.

geezer

Do any of the images support switching required for IINS in GNS3? I am finding some problems getting full port-based security (dot1x) commands.

Thanks

CiskHo

geezer wrote: »

Do any of the images support switching required for IINS in GNS3? I am finding some problems getting full port-based security (dot1x) commands.

I'm not well versed with GNS3 yet but I did see that the NM-16ESW (switching network module for 2600/3600) was supported/listed. Not sure if that would help with the dot1x stuff or not

mikej412

CiskHo wrote: »

NM-16ESW

Configuring IEEE 802.1x Port-Based Authentication* [Cisco IOS and NX-OS Software] - Cisco Systems

The features described in this document are available only on switch ports installed in Cisco ISR routers. The IEEE 802.1x port-based authentication features are available in Cisco IOS Release 12.4(11)T on Cisco 800, 870, 1800, 2800, and 3800 series ISRs that support switch ports.

Looks like it might not be supported, but it's still worth a look.

To determine whether your router has switch ports that can be configured with the IEEE 802.1x port-based authentication feature, use the show interfaces switchport command.

geezer

Thanks for the info. Tried with 3640 on IOS 12.4 image but very limited dot1x parameters. Don't have access to 800 or 2800s etc so am a little stumped how to lab this...