In this guide, you will find clear instructions on how to set up GNS3 and a couple of software to practice labs in CCNA domination, especially volume 2.
Lab Requirements
Here are the software and Cisco IOS/QEMU images you will need:
- GNS3
- VMware Workstation Player
- WinRAR
- Syslog Watcher
- PowerSNMP Network Manager (trial version is enough)
- Postman
- Cisco IOS 3660
- Cisco IOS 7200
- Cisco CML IOSv
- CML IOSvL2
- CSR1000V
The labs have been developed using the following Cisco IOS/QEMU images:
- c3660-jk9o3s-mz.124-15.T8.bin
- c7200-advipservicesk9-mz.150-1.M.bin
- vios-adventerprisek9-m.vmdk.SPA.156-2.T
- vios_l2-adventerprisek9-m.03.2017.qcow2
- csr1000v-universalk9.16.12.06-serial.qcow2
You can use other versions of the Cisco IOS/QEMU images mentioned above. However, you must rename them according to the table below before adding them to GNS3 so that the lab files open correctly.
| Cisco IOS/QEMU Image | File Name |
| Cisco IOS 3660 | C3660.BIN |
| Cisco IOS 7200 | C7200.BIN |
| Cisco CML IOSv | virtioa.T |
| Cisco CML IOSvL2 | virtioa.qcow2 |
| Cisco CSR1000V | csr1000v.qcow2 |
Downloading and Installing Required Software
WinRAR
Go to https://www.win-rar.com/download.html, download WinRAR setup file, then double-click it in order to start installing the software.
VMware Workstation Player
Go to https://www.vmware.com/products/workstation-player/workstation-player-evaluation.html, and download VMware Workstation Player.
Double-click the VMware Player setup file to start installing the software. The setup process is easy, just follow the instructions of VMware Player setup wizard.
Configuring The VMnet 1 Interface
At this point, we change the IP address of interface VMnet1 to 10.0.0.100.
Click Start, type network connections, and then click View network connections.
Right-click VMnet1, and then click Properties.
Click Internet Protocol Version 4, and then click Properties.
Type 10.0.0.100 and 255.255.255.0 in the IP address and Subnet mask fields, and then click OK.
Click Close.
Syslog Watcher
Open the URL https://ezfive.com/syslog-watcher/, and download Syslog Watcher.
Once you download the setup file, double-click on it and then follow the setup wizard’s instructions in order to install the software.
When the setup wizard asks you what components to install, select Install Syslog Watcher Server and Syslog Watcher Manager.
PowerSNMP Network Manager
Go to https://www.dart.com/collections, download PowerSNMP Network Manager (free trial), and then install it.
Postman
Open the URL https://www.postman.com/downloads/, download Postman setup file, then install the software.
GNS3
Go to https://gns3.com/software/download, and download GNS3 software.
Open the URL https://gns3.com/software/download-vm, and then download the GNS3 VM.
Importing GNS3 VM into VMware Workstation
Right-click the downloaded GNS3 VM Zip file, and then click Extract All.
Click Extract.
Double-click the GNS3 VM file, and then click Continue.
Click Finish.
Set the VM name to GNS3 VM, select where to store it, and then click import.
NOTE THAT USING A DIFFERENT NAME MAY CAUSE GNS3 TO NOT FIND THE GNS3 VIRTUAL MACHINE.
Click in the console view, then press Enter.
Scroll down to Network, and then press Enter.
Press Enter.
Uncomment eight lines starting from the line consisting of the string “network:” until the line including 10.10.10.2, which you replace with 10.0.0.222.
Once you finish, the file content will become like the following. Additionally, press Ctrl+O, then press Enter to save the changes. Finally, press Ctrl+X to exit Nano (text editor).
Once GNS3 VM finishes restarting, ping IP address 10.0.0.222 from Windows. If the ping fails, recheck GNS3 VM’s network settings.
Click in the console view, press Enter, scroll down to Shell, and then ping 10.0.0.100. Basically, the ping wouldn’t succeed. Probably, a security app on your computer is blocking the GNS3 VM from sending traffic out of the VMnet1 interface. If you don’t have one, it may be Windows Defender. In this case, follow these steps to fix the issue on Windows 10.
Click Start, type Defender, and then click Windows Defender Firewall.
Click Advanced settings.
Click Windows Defender Firewall Properties.
Open the Public Profile tab, and then click Customize.
Uncheck VMware Network Adapter VMnet1, and then click OK.
Click OK.
Finally, ping 10.0.0.100 from the GNS3 VM. The ping would succeed, as shown in the next figure.
Click Shut Down Guest.
Open VMware Workstation Player, and click GNS3 VM.
Click Edit virtual machine settings.
Click Memory, then select 4GB.
Click Processors, select 2 in the Number of processor cores drop-down list, and then click OK. If you have enough vCPUs on your machine, select 4.
Installing GNS3 Software
Double-click the GNS3 setup file.
Click Next.
Click I Agree.
Click Next.
Click +.
Select Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager (HAXM).
Scroll down the list, and deselect Solar-Putty if you don’t want to install it. Solar-Putty requires that you enter an email address in order to install it.
Click Next.
Click Next.
Click Next.
Click I Agree.
Click Install
Click Finish.
Click I Agree.
Click Install.
Click Next.
Click Finish.
Click Next.
Click Install.
Click Finish.
If you kept the Solar-Putty check box selected, you would get this window. In this case, Check “I agree to the End User License Agreement”, and click Accept.
Enter an email address, and click Continue.
Click Next.
Installing SolarWinds Standard Toolset is optional, you won’t need it to practice the labs. Therefore, simply select no, and then click Next.
Click Finish.
Select Run appliances in a virtual machine, check “Don’t show this again”, and click Next.
Click Next.
Click Next.
Select GNS3 VM in the VM name drop-down list, set the vCPU Cores to 2, set the RAM size to 4096 MB, and then click Next.
Click Finish.
Importing Cisco IOS and QEMU Images
Decompressing IOS Images
Right-click the C3660 image file, and click Open with.
Click More apps.
Click Look for another app on this PC.
Double-click WinRAR.
Double-click WinRAR.exe.
Drag and drop C3660-JK.BIN to a folder of your choice.
Right-click the Cisco 7200 image file, and click Open.
Drag and drop C7200-AD.BIN to a folder of your choice.
Renaming IOS/QEMU Images
Right-click the C3660-JK.BIN file, click Rename, set the file name to C3660.BIN, and then press Enter.
Right-click the C7200-AD.BIN file, select Rename, set the file name to C7200.BIN, and then press Enter.
Right-click the IOSvL2 image, click Rename, type virtioa.qcow2, and then press Enter.
Rename the IOSv and CSR1000V image files to virtioa.T and csr1000v.qcow2, respectively.
Adding Cisco IOS Images
In the GNS3 GUI, open the Edit menu, and click Preferences.
Click IOS routers, then click New.
Select Run the IOS router on the GNS3 VM, then click Next.
Click browse, select the C3600.BIN file, then click Next. You will get a warning message; simply click OK.
Set the Name, Platform, and Chassis fields to c3600, then click Next.
Click Next.
Configure slots 0 and 1 according to the next figure, then click Next.
Click Idle-PC finder, then click Finish.
At this point, optimizing the Idle-PC may fail. In this case, follow the steps in the Configuring Idle-PC section.
Click Edit.
Click Browse.
Right-click ios_base_startup-config.txt, and click Open.
Put an exclamation mark at the beginning of the lines starting with hostname and no ip domain-lookup commands.
Open the File menu, click Save, and close the actual window.
Click Cancel.
Click OK.
Click New.
Select Run the IOS router on the GNS3 VM, then click Next.
Click browse, select the C7200.BIN file, then click Next. You will get a warning message; simply click OK.
Set the Name and Platform fields to c7200, then click Next.
Click Next.
Configure slots 0 and 1 according to the next figure, then click Next.
Click Idle-PC finder, then click Finish.
Adding IOSv
Click QEMU VMs, then click New.
Click Run this Qemu VM on the GNS3 VM, then click Next.
Type IOSv in the Name field, and then click Next.
Make sure to select /bin/qemu-system-x86_64(v4.2.1) in Qemu binary, set the RAM size to 512 MB, and click Next.
Click Next.
Click New Image, click Browse, select virtioa.T, and then click Finish.
Click Edit.
Configure the Default name format, Symbol, and Category fields according to the next figure.
Open the HDD tab, and set the Disk interface fields under HDA and HDB to virtio.
Open the Network tab, set the values of the Adapters, Name format, and Segment size fields according to the figure below, and then click OK.
Adding IOSvL2
Click New.
Click Run this Qemu VM on the GNS3 VM, then click Next.
Type IOSvL2 in the Name field, and then click Next.
Make sure to select /bin/qemu-system-x86_64(v4.2.1) in Qemu binary, set the RAM size to 768 MB, and click Next.
Click Next.
Click New Image, click Browse, select virtioa.qcow2, and then click Finish.
Click Edit.
Configure the Default name format, Symbol, and Category fields according to the next figure.
Open the HDD tab, and set the Disk interface field under the HDA section to virtio.
Open the Network tab, set the values of the Adapters, Name format, and Segment size fields according to the figure below, and then click OK.
Adding CSR1000V
Click New.
Click Run this Qemu VM on the GNS3 VM, then click Next.
Type CSR1000V in the Name field, and then click Next.
Make sure to select /bin/qemu-system-x86_64(v4.2.1) in Qemu binary, set the RAM size to 3072MB, and click Next.
Click Next.
Click New Image, click Browse, select csr1000v.qcow2, and then click Finish.
Click Edit.
Configure the Default name format, Symbol, Category, and vCPUs fields according to the next figure.
Open the HDD tab, and set the Disk interface field under the HDA section to ide.
Open the Network tab, set the values of the Adapters, Name format, and Type fields according to the figure below, and then click OK.
At this point, click OK to finish.
Open a GNS3 Lab File
Launch GNS3, and wait till the GNS3 VM displays the following dialog box.
Go to the GNS3 interface, and click Open a project from disk.
Double-click on the file you want to open.
GNS3 will open up the file and display the network topology.
Configuring Idle-PC
Launch GNS3, and wait till the GNS3 VM displays the following dialog box.
Go to the GNS3 interface, enter a project name in the Name textbox, and click OK.
Click the router icon, then drag and drop a Cisco IOS router model to the GNS3 workspace.
Right-click the router icon, and then select Auto Idle-PC.
If GNS3 finds an Idle-PC value, it will show you the following dialog box; otherwise, it will display an error message and you will need to re-calculate the Idle-PC again.
Finally, to make sure GNS3 selects a good Idle-Pc value, the CPU usage percentage should not exceed 5%.
Conclusion
Now, you can start practicing the labs in CCNA Domination. You have done all the work to set up GNS3 and the necessary software to practice labs that require GNS3.
If you have questions, do hesitate to send contact us at support(at)itskillbuilding.com.
