Virtual lab software

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Destonomos

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 13, 2004
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I'm in college and I'm going to be graduating in 1 semester (1 after this current one). Anyways its been almost 2.5 years since I've touched a router since our college thinks its awsesome to put all the hands on classes at the begining so you have ample time to forget what you learned. Anyways I did my internship and ended up not needing to touch a router but mainly doing stuff in AD, Exchange console, and BES remote console.

I'm looking to get my hands on some virtual software so I can get back into knowing the commands and how some stuff works. We have labs here on campus but the harddrives for the comps are for classes and although the teachers say you can use any of them I haded coming into class when I was working with the same harddrives everyday to note someone erased all our stuff and he spent half the class redoing everything.

I was seeing some virutal programs that looked decent like mimic (just saw a ton of links didn't check it out) and http://www.amazon.com/CCNA-Virtual-Titanium-Todd-Lammle/dp/0470148942 . Can anyone tell me some good software I could use so I can get some of this stuff back into my head? I've been spending the last 2 years learning wireless and how it works and upper level ERP emplimentation classes :p.
 
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If you're looking for PC virtualization check out vmware server. Its free and pretty much the best hypervisor, period. You can also check out parallels, virtualPC, Xen.... all paravirtualization.

If you want to virtualize cisco routers check into dynamips. Good stuff.
http://dynagen.org/
dynagen is just the front end for dynamips.
 
xphil3 said:
If you're looking for PC virtualization check out vmware server. Its free and pretty much the best hypervisor, period. You can also check out parallels, virtualPC, Xen.... all paravirtualization.

If you want to virtualize cisco routers check into dynamips. Good stuff.
http://dynagen.org/
dynagen is just the front end for dynamips.
Click to expand...

I'd like to do something i've been doing that past few days and say check out Hyper-V as well. I made the switch from Vmware Server and couldn't be happier.

For Cisco emulation look at http://www.gns3.net/. its a nice GUI for dyanmips.
 
I got an installer package from dynagen and is it all text based? I was kind of looking for something that was a little more picture oriented with me being able to open the telnet session and console into the routers that you add to the network through a layout inside the program. Does gns3 do that? Dynamps seems to be all text based.

Also do both these programs require a Cisco IOS image because I don't have one.
 
Destonomos said:
I got an installer package from dynagen and is it all text based? I was kind of looking for something that was a little more picture oriented with me being able to open the telnet session and console into the routers that you add to the network through a layout inside the program. Does gns3 do that? Dynamps seems to be all text based.
Click to expand...
see Oakfans post above for the graphical front end to dynamips.

Destonomos said:
Also do both these programs require a Cisco IOS image because I don't have one.
Click to expand...
Yes, they require an IOS image. Dynamips isn't so much a router simulation, your actually emulating the device.
 
I am loving gns so far I'm going through the tutorials right now about learning the program but it is really bringing the simplistic comands that I haven't used in 3 years or so back to ease. Quick question. Once you have the image for the 7200 series router is there really any use to loading images for the other routers in the program because i'm assuming from the number the 7200 can do everything the lower models can do they are just there incase you have those routers?

gns3 rocks. I am going to be setting up all kinds of stuff with this to try and emulate some labs we have here at college at home. Well, try being the key word.
 
Destonomos said:
I am loving gns so far I'm going through the tutorials right now about learning the program but it is really bringing the simplistic comands that I haven't used in 3 years or so back to ease. Quick question. Once you have the image for the 7200 series router is there really any use to loading images for the other routers in the program because i'm assuming from the number the 7200 can do everything the lower models can do they are just there incase you have those routers?

gns3 rocks. I am going to be setting up all kinds of stuff with this to try and emulate some labs we have here at college at home. Well, try being the key word.
Click to expand...
Once you define an image in dynamips you associate that to a model of router, then when you load up your router to say which model you are using. You can use multiple models of routers per lab if you would like.

I know for a fact that the most popular router to emulate is the 3640, it can do everything that you need. A little history, dynamips was created to save people money that were studying for the CCIE when a 7200 was in the architecture and it was a requirement to configure ATM. ATM is no longer on the CCIE so thats why the programmer decided to expand the capabilities of the application. You can run far more 3600 routers using your hardware than you will be able to with the 7200 series routers.

As for GNS3, once you get the hang of it... dump it. You're going to start having a ton of .net files(your networks) and the easiest way to load them is through dynagen plus you will have problems going fron gns3 to dynagen(gns3 adds a ton of shit to your net files.... graphical coordinates). Even though everything is done text based, i can create a network faster than anyone can is GNS3(you just have to get the hang of it).
 
Just installed this, i'm trying to get an advanced enterprise image from work. I have a feeling they are going to say no.
 
Rampage1329 said:
Just installed this, i'm trying to get an advanced enterprise image from work. I have a feeling they are going to say no.
Click to expand...
nope, it'll work fine. You are virtualizing routers, emulating them. The code is completely unaware that its being run on a non-cisco hardware platform. There are some limitations, like you can emulate ISR routers, switches, firewalls(using dynamips). Also, feature set is completely irrelevant.
 
I know its illegal to talk about where to get them but legally to get a cisco IOS you should be pulling it off an actualy router you own or buying one from Cisco. If your using this forum I'm assuming you have heard of torrents. Just a tip.

Yeah I didn't think of a 7200 eating up more of my resources. Pretty much once I run 3 of them with some switches my cpu is maxed to 100% and I'm stuck with using the program and that is it from that point on. I'll try the lower routers sometime when I get a chance. I just download the virtual pc program it has in a tutorial to mimic the computers as well which rocks. I'm totally syked about this program right now.

Quick question. I'm having trouble exporting the startup configs in the routers in the program because I am having trouble using the command (copy run start). Once I type that from what I remember it instantly copied the running config to the startup config on the routers. From that point it seems like I should be able toe export them to the .net files within GNS3 but I can't get them to copy to the nvram in the router. After I type copy run start it comes up with another prompt which I don't know how to answer and no matter what I type afterwards it says error and won't copy the running config. Whats the simple command I'm missing if someone can enlighten me. It's been 2 years since I've sat down at a router prompt here at college and I'm going to be spending the next two semester in my free time relearning or at least getting the stuff back into my head. I've only been on the prompts for 2 days and I've got the basic comands all back like I was using them yesterday :).
 
Forget my last post. I just had to type in startup-config and hit enter and it started working. Then I click file new and apply to current topology and it saves all the configs of the routers in my diagram the next time I open them :).
 
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