How to simulate hosts on real lab

Hi!

I've here my new lab

and i'm ready to experiment.
The first problem is... how can i simulate different hosts? Are 2/3 pc necessary, or can I use the same pc with 2/3/4 ethernet interfaces?
How do you work in your lab?

Thanks!

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Comments

vasyvasy

You can use loopback addresses on your routers and only plug your physical machine when in need of learning to troubleshoot access technologies and L1/L2 problems
Or, you can use different ethernet cards on your system, all plugged in different ports of routers/switches
Or, you can use VLANs/tagging on your ethernet card on your system, that is connected to a trunk port on a switch
Or, you can use VMs
Or, you can use multiple physical machines (PCs)
Or, you simply can ignore hosts altogether and go to bed

theodoxa

1 PC with VirtualBox and multiple NICs.

Matro

I'm installing 3 NICs and VMware Player... I must buy a 23" screen for using all VM at the same time

d4nz1g

Well, if you just need to test conectivity, you can simply use loopback interfaces on a router. works fine for me to simulate remote subnets (in the case of routing protocols).

MAC_Addy

Like others have said, just create a loopback address. That's the easiest and cheapest way to see if you've configured something correctly across a link.

FloOz

Loopback addresses for sure

Dieg0M

To create hardware loopback:
interface f0/0
no shut
no keepalive
loopback
ip add x.x.x.x

To create logical loopback:
int l0
ip add x.x.x.x

Matro

In L2 switch I can't set loopback interfaces.. so are real host necessary? (testing Vlans, etc)

MAC_Addy

No, just create the loopback interface on each of the routers.

Matro

I'm not able to create a loopback interface.
F0/0 of my router has IP 192.168.10.1, I want to create a loopback to simulate an host; If I create a 192.168.10.5 loopback if, IOS says that an overlap with 192.168.10.0 is occuring; What's wrong?

vasyvasy

You will not be able to set up different IP addresses from the same subnet on different interfaces of the router
I suggest using loopback addresess like 1.1.1.1 or 10.0.0.1

You will be able to reach these addresses: they will appear as statically connected in the routing table and you will just have to remember to advertise them in routing processes