How to simulate hosts on real lab

Matro

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!

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