GNS3 lab with real equipment

ehnde

I'm wondering if I have what is physically necessary to run a hybrid GNS3 + real equipment lab with this topology: http://www.freeccnaworkbook.com/downloads/topology.pdf

My GNS3 box only has 3 NICs available (4 total, but the 4th is plugged up to my LAN). Two real routers, 1 real switch. I want to run R1, R2, and R3 in GNS3 all plugged in to FR0 (my 2950), and the two real routers will be R4 and R5. They are 1721s if it matters. The 1721s will be connected with WIC 1t's via a T1 crossover (is this the right pinout? crossover T1 cable - voip-info.org ). I'll use the FE ports on the 1721s to plug them into the 2950 (FR0).

Will this work? Any advice? I hope the 2950 can function as a frame relay

stuh84

The 2950 is a switch, correct? It can't function as a frame relay switch, that requires serial interfaces, a 2950 is an ethernet switch

ehnde

Ah oh well I'm not surprised there are hiccups in the plan. I'll do the frame relay stuff in GNS3 as suggested on the freeccnaworkbook.com lab (when I get to that part).

seekrit

You don't need frame relay for the ICND1. You'll get all that you can handle once you pass onto ICND2. Id suggest practicing RIP, static and default routes.

ehnde

OK, thanks for the tip. It's hard to sort out what to practice for ICND1 looking at lab workbooks that are geared towards a combination of both ICND1 and ICND2.

seekrit

Yeah, I understand. When you first start out with Cisco it can be a bit overwhelming. Go create yourself a Cisco account and look at the 640-822 ICND1 blueprint.

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-4986

thehourman

I am just wondering about your GNS3 box.
Is it a dedicated GNS3 PC?
If it is, what OS does it have?

seekrit

Dedicated boxes are generally running Linux with Dynagen/Dynamips and not GNS3.

ehnde

thehourman wrote: »

I am just wondering about your GNS3 box.
Is it a dedicated GNS3 PC?
If it is, what OS does it have?

This computer has 6GB of RAM and an Athlon X2 running at 3ghz. OS is Ubuntu 10.10 x86_64. Running the topology I linked (8 routers with 3 acting as switches) I'm using 3gb of ram. My cpu is running at around 97% even with idle-pc values calculated

I'm running the gnome desktop and firefox in addition to gns3. If I were more hard core like some people on techexams, I'd just run dynamip. Haven't figured that out yet. I'll probably work towards ditching GNS3 and just strictly using Dynagen/Dynamips like Seekrit mentioned.

ehnde

PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                      
 4911 root      20   0  535m 372m 192m S   73  6.2   9:03.54 dynamips                     
 4926 root      20   0  535m 373m 193m S   42  6.2  10:50.67 dynamips                     
 4896 root      20   0  536m 373m 193m S   42  6.2  13:10.40 dynamips                     
 4836 root      20   0  535m 263m 204m S    7  4.4   4:16.63 dynamips                     
 4851 root      20   0  533m 262m 203m S    7  4.4   4:06.03 dynamips                     
 4881 root      20   0  535m 263m 204m S    7  4.4  10:38.83 dynamips                     
 4821 root      20   0  535m 263m 204m S    6  4.4   4:02.33 dynamips                     
 4866 root      20   0  535m 263m 204m S    6  4.4   5:01.74 dynamips                     
 1652 tyler     20   0  133m  76m  10m S    4  1.3   4:30.71 nxagent                      
 1898 tyler     20   0  310m  16m  10m S    3  0.3   1:38.59 gnome-terminal               
 2025 tyler     20   0  748m 124m  32m S    1  2.1   3:16.58 firefox-bin                  
 1470 nx        20   0 79316 1668  800 S    0  0.0   0:39.46 sshd                         
 1854 tyler     20   0  357m  16m  12m S    0  0.3   0:01.74 clock-applet

See most of the virtual routers are running fine, but 3 are killing my cpu. Is there a way to identify which router goes with which PID?

notgoing2fail

I currently have seven routers running on Win2003 with 6gigs of RAM.

In fact it's 32-bit OS so I'm only using up to 3Gigs...

I configured idle-pc and my server runs at 33% CPU usage. It's a beast!!!

Server is an HP DL320 G5 dual core Xeon.


I don't know too much about GNS3 but I'm starting to get the hang of it and I love it!!!

ehnde

I should be seeing a similar utilization to your 33%. I must be doing something wrong

thehourman

ehnde wrote: »

I should be seeing a similar utilization to your 33%. I must be doing something wrong

Hmmm.
I have Ubuntu 10.04 x86 Desktop version on my netbook Asus 1005HA. And I can run 5 routers at 89% average CPU processes.

I have an 5y/o Sony desktop, and it has Pentium 4 (single core) with Hyper-threading. And 2GB of RAM. I don't think that desktop won't become a GNS3 box.


@notgoingtofail
Hey man, I haven't seen you posting in a long time.

Yea, that GNS3 help me a lot too. And electric bill and room temperature went down a little.

@seekrit
If currently have GNS3 on my desktop (Win7 x64) and it is running fine so far.
I also noticed that under Ubuntu it runs better than Windows.

Is there a big difference between Dynagen/Dynamips and GNS3?

notgoing2fail

thehourman wrote: »

Hmmm.
I have Ubuntu 10.04 x86 Desktop version on my netbook Asus 1005HA. And I can run 5 routers at 89% average CPU processes.

I have an 5y/o Sony desktop, and it has Pentium 4 (single core) with Hyper-threading. And 2GB of RAM. I don't think that desktop won't become a GNS3 box.


@notgoingtofail
Hey man, I haven't seen you posting in a long time.

Yea, that GNS3 help me a lot too. And electric bill and room temperature went down a little.

Yeah I've finally given in and put in some time into GNS3. About 2-3 weeks now on it. I really do like it. Took me awhile to get the hang of it. There were times when it would crash but I noticed that's when the CPU was pegged and before I configured idle-pc.....

Since then it's been humming!! Now I want to see what else more I can do with it!!


Yeah I've been meaning to spend more time here and I have to be more diligent in doing so. It's been tough with so much work lately...

Glad to see you're still around!

I hope you've gotten yourself some new serial modules! ha!

thehourman

Yea, I bought a new one, this time it works.
That damn ebay dude, I have never received my replacement module. I lost my $50, but I got over with it. Karma will hit that ebay seller someday.

I have been studying Linux little by little, so that I can build a Linux box for my Cisco path. I can't afford to buy real equipments anymore.
The only problem would be the NIC cards are too darn expensive.

seekrit

thehourman wrote: »

Is there a big difference between Dynagen/Dynamips and GNS3?

GNS3 is the GUI front end to Dynagen/Dynamips. It's bloated and buggy, I use it on my desktop when I just want to "turn it on" and run some commands to test something. But it's no where near as stable as just running it from the command line in Linux.

Once you get the hang of using dynamips and configuring .net files it's a piece of cake. I have a dedicated ubuntu box for running more complex labs then my home lab is capable. It saves on electricity too, having 7-8 Cisco devices up and running for hours on end really heats up the room and add's a few $$ to the power bill

thehourman

seekrit wrote: »

GNS3 is the GUI front end to Dynagen/Dynamips. It's bloated and buggy, I use it on my desktop when I just want to "turn it on" and run some commands to test something. But it's no where near as stable as just running it from the command line in Linux.

Once you get the hang of using dynamips and configuring .net files it's a piece of cake. I have a dedicated ubuntu box for running more complex labs then my home lab is capable. It saves on electricity too, having 7-8 Cisco devices up and running for hours on end really heats up the room and add's a few $$ to the power bill

Electric bill and heat are my problems as well.

Do you mind to list your Ubuntu box hardware specs?

I am thinking to build a Ubuntu box, but I might stick for GNS3 for a while.
Here's the build I might get:

notgoing2fail

thehourman wrote: »

Yea, I bought a new one, this time it works.
That damn ebay dude, I have never received my replacement module. I lost my $50, but I got over with it. Karma will hit that ebay seller someday.

I have been studying Linux little by little, so that I can build a Linux box for my Cisco path. I can't afford to buy real equipments anymore.
The only problem would be the NIC cards are too darn expensive.

I'm sorry to hear that you didn't get a refund. Since we've last chatted, I bought myself two 3750's. I love them and it was very expensive but I wanted to gain the experience of stackable switches so I expect to be doing some labs and blogs soon about them.

I do hear that linux can run GNS much better. Funny, I've been using redhat for over 10 years but I don't consider myself a linux guru at all.

If anything, start looking at Ubuntu if you haven't done so.....

Why are the NIC cards expensive? I assume they are cheap these days?

seekrit wrote: »

GNS3 is the GUI front end to Dynagen/Dynamips. It's bloated and buggy, I use it on my desktop when I just want to "turn it on" and run some commands to test something. But it's no where near as stable as just running it from the command line in Linux.

Once you get the hang of using dynamips and configuring .net files it's a piece of cake. I have a dedicated ubuntu box for running more complex labs then my home lab is capable. It saves on electricity too, having 7-8 Cisco devices up and running for hours on end really heats up the room and add's a few $$ to the power bill

Perhaps you can point me to how I can get started using dynamips then. I just started dipping into GNS3 and I really love it now.

It does seem very very sensitive so I have to be careful. As mentioned above, I have 7 routers on it so far and it is humming.

Once I am done with this BGP project of mine, I'd like to see how far I can push it. Have you done anything complex with it such as hooking it up to real equipment?

I would love to do that. Is there any way to hook it up to a real layer3 switch?

notgoing2fail

thehourman wrote: »

Electric bill and heat are my problems as well.

Do you mind to list your Ubuntu box hardware specs?

I am thinking to build a Ubuntu box, but I might stick for GNS3 for a while.
Here's the build I might get:
Newegg.com Shopping Cart

LOL you'll have to post your shopping cart list here. You can link it, the session info is only meant for you!!!

thehourman

notgoing2fail wrote: »

LOL you'll have to post your shopping cart list here. You can link it, the session info is only meant for you!!!

Lol, I just realized it. After I posted it, 3secs later I quickly took a sceenshot and attached it.
Well, I was not fast enough to edit my post:
http://www.techexams.net/forums/ccna-ccent/62041-gns3-lab-real-equipment.html#post489590

notgoing2fail

I think that's great! A nice little GNS system for under $500 if I read it correctly....

The only thing about getting those mini pc's, is that, do you think you will have enough NIC cards?

thehourman

notgoing2fail wrote: »

I think that's great! A nice little GNS system for under $500 if I read it correctly....

The only thing about getting those mini pc's, is that, do you think you will have enough NIC cards?

That build does not have NICs and HDD. I have a spare 160GB 5400rpm from my netbook that I can use for this build. I think the multi port NICs are kind of expensive, at least on newegg.

The motherboard have 3 PCI and 2 PCIe slots, I think those slots should be enough to take me to CCNP or may be to IE.

ehnde

You can find 4 port NICs on ebay for $30 right now.

thehourman

Would we be able to use ROAS, and some other stuff?

I read some thread that some specific NICs are recommended like that one from D-link and Adaptec.

I could be wrong, I am still learning Linux.

seekrit

ehnde wrote: »

You can find 4 port NICs on ebay for $30 right now.

Right, the Sun Quad Fast PCI Ethernet Card 501-4366 works great on Linux and their about $30ish

First Quad-Core NIC bought | Darren's CCIE mission

notgoing2fail wrote:

Perhaps you can point me to how I can get started using dynamips then. I just started dipping into GNS3 and I really love it now.

It does seem very very sensitive so I have to be careful. As mentioned above, I have 7 routers on it so far and it is humming.

Once I am done with this BGP project of mine, I'd like to see how far I can push it. Have you done anything complex with it such as hooking it up to real equipment?

I would love to do that. Is there any way to hook it up to a real layer3 switch?

You can try it out on Win7 if you like. Just go download the files here

Their tutorial is here

It's pretty easy to hook up your real devices, I've had my 3550 configured several times. There are countless tutorials on google/youtube, so I'll leave that up to you..

thehourman wrote:

Electric bill and heat are my problems as well.

Do you mind to list your Ubuntu box hardware specs?

I am thinking to build a Ubuntu box, but I might stick for GNS3 for a while.
Here's the build I might get:

Get as much ram as you can hold on your board. I regret not getting a motherboard with 6 slots. Getting DDR3 is pointless for a dedicated box, just go with DDR2.

Right now I'm not running an i7-920, 6-gigs of ddr3.. Nothing cool. It was my desktop for 6 months before I realised I just like using a laptop. So It dual boots between Ubuntu/Win7. I'm thinking about getting a dell poweredge to mount on my rack with a couple AP9225 multiswitches so I can do remote power and play whenever I like, but I can't do it until a little further down the road, If I even do it at all. I've loaded 80 x 3640 (128m) routers on this machine before just to see if I could, so I don't really have a reason to buy a new machine besides it not having the cool factor of being a rack-mount.

thehourman

Get as much ram as you can hold on your board. I regret not getting a motherboard with 6 slots. Getting DDR3 is pointless for a dedicated box, just go with DDR2.

Right now I'm not running an i7-920, 6-gigs of ddr3.. Nothing cool. It was my desktop for 6 months before I realised I just like using a laptop. So It dual boots between Ubuntu/Win7. I'm thinking about getting a dell poweredge to mount on my rack with a couple AP9225 multiswitches so I can do remote power and play whenever I like, but I can't do it until a little further down the road, If I even do it at all. I've loaded 80 x 3640 (128m) routers on this machine before just to see if I could, so I don't really have a reason to buy a new machine besides it not having the cool factor of being a rack-mount.

I might get this to replace my 4GB then.
Newegg.com - Mushkin Enhanced Silverline 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model 996770

My main desktop now, is X58 with 6GB of RAM, and I'm using Win7 x64. So far, my GNS3 hasn't given me any problem yet. The reload command never works, though.

Another question about the Dynamips/Dynagen. Do you have to rewrite the .net again every time you change the topology?

Also, is it possible to study voice with GNS3 or Dynamips/dynagen?

seekrit

The reload isn't supported. You have to stop R1, or stop /all then issue the start R1 or start /all.

Yes, you need to edit or make a new .net file for each topology change, and yes you can use it for CCNA:V with Callmanager express.

notgoing2fail

I've had issues with the reload as well. If it doesn't work why is it there?

It has crashed on me before so I just stopped using it. I think even reloads from the CLI has caused me some issues...

Right now, as mentioned, stopping and starting the router seems to be the best and safest method......

seekrit

I'm talking about R1#reload command from privileged exec mode, it's not supported.. Not the buttons in the GNS3. The best way to reload a router is by going into the dynamips command box at the bottom of GNS3 and issuing the "stop R#" and "start R#"

I'm pretty sure that command is supported in GNS3, In the short experience with GNS3 I've noticed a lot of commands aren't supported that you would use strictly on a dyna' box

tiersten

What seekrit said. Dynamips doesn't implement ROMMON and specially loads in IOS when you start a router. Those two parts together means that reloading doesn't work because it tries to start ROMMON again.

Dynamips hasn't been updated for ~4 years now. The author last posted mid 2010 but appears to be busy with other things. Considering the lack of support past 15.0M for all of the supported platforms, it may just be that its not considered worthwhile to continue to work on those platforms. Adding the new ISRs isn't easy due to the Cisco ASICs and other undocumented parts that got added.

notgoing2fail

tiersten wrote: »

What seekrit said. Dynamips doesn't implement ROMMON and specially loads in IOS when you start a router. Those two parts together means that reloading doesn't work because it tries to start ROMMON again.

Dynamips hasn't been updated for ~4 years now. The author last posted mid 2010 but appears to be busy with other things. Considering the lack of support past 15.0M for all of the supported platforms, it may just be that its not considered worthwhile to continue to work on those platforms. Adding the new ISRs isn't easy due to the Cisco ASICs and other undocumented parts that got added.

So it sounds like the world of GNS3/dynagen/dynamips could be end of life in the near future? Granted so much can still be learned with current IOS's, but at some point, you're back to having to play with real equipment.