GNS3 - Which router/IOS?

I finally got round to playing with GNS3 and it looks great - my wife will love it if it means she doesn't have to look at a bunch of routers around the house!

For those of you who used GNS for ROUTE can I ask which router and IOS versions you used/would recommend?

I have a valid CCO login and am looking to download the relevant IOS and get cracking

Cheers

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BroadcastStorm

Get the IOS for 3725 routers, it does everything for CCNP routing that I am aware of at least, 2611XM also works but I run into a bug with GNS3.

Hope this helps.

ehnde

I'm not at your level, but you are going to want an image that runs on less ram. Each router uses X amount of ram. 96MB sounds a heck of alot better than 256MB

I'm using a 3640 image and 1721 image as well. It would probably be silly to run a 7000 series router IOS if you didn't need that kind of power in your lab. And don't forget to get an idle PC value

tiersten

BrizoH wrote: »

I have a valid CCO login and am looking to download the relevant IOS and get cracking

The loophole which allowed you to download everything with any SMARTnet contract assigned is going away sometime in January. CCO will only allow you to download files for the specific devices which you have a SMARTnet contract for.

BrizoH

Thanks guys!

tiersten wrote: »

The loophole which allowed you to download everything with any SMARTnet contract assigned is going away sometime in January. CCO will only allow you to download files for the specific devices which you have a SMARTnet contract for.

It's still working at the moment but I guess I better get a move on

tomaifauchai

I also used 3725 advanced enterprise 12.4T for both ROUTE and Voice!

pitviper

I tried a bunch – Had the least stability issues with the 3725 IOSs so that’s now all that I use.

aldous

BroadcastStorm wrote: »

Get the IOS for 3725 routers, it does everything for CCNP routing that I am aware of at least, 2611XM also works but I run into a bug with GNS3.

Hope this helps.

i'd go 3725 , 12.4 IOS 2611xm's have MPLS removed (its in some 12.3 as mike pointed out to me in another thread) also the INE topologies recommend using a 3725 image so there must be a reason for that

BrizoH

3725 it is, thanks for the all the replies, I'll download it tonight

ConstantlyLearning

I've had issues with 2611XM's and so have other people from posts I've read so I wouldn't go with them.

notgoing2fail

My most recent lab was with 7200's, eight of them.....CPU usage was running at about 40%.

I think I could have pushed it to probably 10 before it would start to crap out....

Ryan82

I also use a 7200 IOS mostly. But if I am doing straight eigrp, rip, or ospf and a ton of routers I use a more lightweight 3640 IOS.

As another poster mentioned I had issues with some flavor of the 2600 series, 2620 I believe and don't use it anymore.

bermovick

Supposedly the 2600's just need to be unzipped first, but that's just too much trouble for me with the other choices available. Another vote for 3725 for me (I managed to run them with 88M of ram, with entbase 12.4 image.

Of course I'm not in the CCNP boat yet so not sure if that image/ram would work in all cases.

notgoing2fail

I've had some trouble with the 2600's....maybe it's just bad image?

During my 7 router lab, I add an 8th which was a 2600, not sure exactly which model, but my server got pegged at 100%. No matter what I did with idle-pc, I couldn't get a proper setting to bring it down.

So I ended up just adding another 7200 as the 8th router and it barely made the CPU sweat......

Heero

notgoing2fail wrote: »

My most recent lab was with 7200's, eight of them.....CPU usage was running at about 40%.

I think I could have pushed it to probably 10 before it would start to crap out....

I always use the 7200s myself. Can't bring myself to downgrade when I dont need to. Currently have an 18 router bgp lab going that runs fine, takes a bit to boot up, but once its up its fine. Its an ubuntu 64bit vm with 5.4 gigs of memory and 4 processors (2.8ghz). With ghostios the memory usage is surprisingly low for 18 routers with 256 MB ram each.