GNS3

GNS3 0.8.2 BETA2

Jeremy — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:07:23 +0000

We are pleased to introduce GNS3 0.8.2 BETA2! You can download it right away on our download page.

With this release we are really getting close to the final one! In fact we could have considered this release as the final 0.8.2 but we did not because we added some new features that need more testing and because there are some known bugs that we would like to fix.

New features and changes:

IOS images can be directly uncompressed by GNS3.
Open recent files menu.
“Start all captures” and “stop all captures” options for Captures Dock.
New icons with fancy hover effects (start, stop, pause, ellipse and rectangle).
Farsi, Czech, Japanese and Italian translations updated.
GNS3 settings file (gns3.ini) can be put in the same folder as gns3.exe (Windows only). This allows GNS3 to be standalone on USB stick for instance.
New host device: a cloud with the ‘computer’ symbol and configured with all host interfaces.
Qemu mac address generator has been fixed.
Access to VirtualBox Manager from the GUI.
Soft link gns3 -> gns3.pyw has been added (Unix/Linux only).
Changed default paths for wrappers on OSX and UNIX/Linux.
Wrappers are now GPL licensed.
PEMU binary has been removed from our sources (it is still available on our download page).
Capture option is now available from the “Device” contextual menu.
Link actions are available from the summary topology window pane.
Show rpcap interface names in a tooltip when hovering an entry in the interface menu (Windows only).
Qemuwrapper support for the new Qemu networking syntax.
Option to send Qemu and Qemu-img paths to an external Qemuwrapper.
Possibility to use stylesheets from the view menu, for now only the ‘Energy saving’ theme is available.
Tooltip for clouds.
User guidance: status bar messages.
Splash screen at startup.
Small improvements and bug fixes all over the place.

Known issues:

Mac OS X: VirtualBox VMs cannot communicate with IOS VMs.
Win XP 64-bit: one Dynamips process stays alive after closing GNS3.
When using Qemu Manager on Linux: VM is stuck on “Booting from Hard Disk” message.

Notes for Mac OS X:

OSX 10.7 Lion: to use GNS3 with VirtualBox, you must copy a library included in our GNS3 Application to VirtualBox Application. (i.e. /Applications/GNS3.app/Contents/Resources/VBoxPython2.7.so to /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxPython2.7.so)
Qemu is not included in our DMG. You will have to patch and compile it yourself (sorry!).

We hope you will enjoy this new release and please keep in mind this is still BETA even if this is close to be a final version. Therefore, if you find any issue, leave a message on our forum. Thank you for your help and support!

New switching section

Jeremy — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:18:33 +0000

I am glad to announce that we have a new switching section on this website. What is it about? Well, most of you know that GNS3 doesn’t support the emulation of Cisco Catalyst switches. We are sorry for that and be assured this situation is not somehow for an obscure purpose. The good news is that you can still make complete labs, routing and switching, by using GNS3 and real Cisco switches.

In fact, many CCIE candidates are using this method and many others passed their lab. Of cource, using real switches can also be useful for other certs.

One problem, there are many howtos about making these kind of labs. Some even give wrong info or have mistakes. All of these howtos, posts, etc with different ways to make a lab can be really confusing.

This is why, in this new section, I tried to explain all the different methods and options with as many details as possible to provide a reference on the topic. I personally tested 3 of the 4 options and described what worked and what did not.

I hope this will help you to make your own lab. Please contact me if you spot mistakes or if you have some improvements that I can add.

New Labs section

Jeremy — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 06:14:21 +0000

This is with great pleasure that I started a new labs section on this website. For now there are only labs to study for the Juniper JNCIA-Junos certification but soon Cisco labs will be added and more after that.

I also plan to add a special and very complete section about using real switches with GNS3 (using many methods, with photos etc.), this is gonna be especially useful for guys studying for the CCIE. This should come at some point in January.

The general goal is to concentrate on documentation/labs for a while as this is something I think we really need to improve. Writing quality documentation require some effort and hope for some feedbacks.

Concerning GNS3, version 0.8.2 final should be released in January as well. Some great additions will come in later releases as we are approaching version 1.0, which should be a major step in making GNS3 the most professional and usable as possible.

Thanks you for your support and happy Christmas!

GNS3 0.8.2 BETA

Jeremy — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 07:16:52 +0000

Today we release a first BETA of the upcoming GNS3 0.8.2. You can download it here.

It brings the official support of the new features introduced in GNS3 0.8.1 VBE (VirtualBox Edition) and also a significant change from both 0.8.1 VBE and 0.7.4, as big chunks of the code was re-structured as well as many small issues have been addressed.

It is not backwards compatible with unofficial 0.8.1 VBE regarding VirtualBox emulation (backward compatibility with official 0.7.4 is ok), so if you use this engine, you may need to edit your GNS3 project files by hand. We also recommend to uninstall your previous GNS3 before installing this new release if you are on Windows (warning: you will lose all your GNS3 settings).

We have re-added only one big feature since 0.8.1 VBE: Mac OS X support.

Other features and changes:

Auto-update checker / notifier (by default disabled on Linux, BSD, enabled on Mac and Windows).
Qemu got a predictable MAC address pseudo-random number generator (brezular’s case).
VirtualBox interface numbering match VBox VM vNics numbering – VBox ethernet adapter now starts counting with “e2″, instead of “e0″ to remove confusion with VBox GUI. (this change may break existing topologies, so people will need to manually edit them. Making automatic converter is too problematic.)
Windows version is now pre-compiled. (like in v0.7.x), 64-bit version is introduced.
Windows all-in-one package includes Wireshark.
Windows all-in-one package allows you to choose between 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Live Capture is now enabled by default on all platforms.
Fixed screenshots (enabled Qt 4.7.x library in GNS3 + shipped Qt 4.7.4 on Windows)
Dynagen: Fixed standalone text-mode / CLI operation.
Fixed QemuManager, which failed to start qemuwrapper.py (Windows XP hosts only).
Main: should start from relative paths now.
GUI: Hide display window errors fixed.
GUI: got new ‘Device’ menu mirroring contextual menu (right-click on a device).
GNS3 version is saved in topology files.
Many small GUI improvements all over the place. (RedNectar’s wishes).
Improvements for setup Wizard and first time users.
Reverted GUI limit to hide Linux options (VDE, NIO_Linux, KVM) due to use case: Windows GUI + Linux server.
Experimental: layers < 0 are now considered background layers. Only annotations, pictures and shaped items can be on a background layer. Once on a background layer, an item cannot be selected and moved anymore. However they still can be individually selected why right-click.

Known issues:

Mac OS X: VirtualBox VMs cannot communicate with IOS VMs.
Win XP 64-bit: one Dynamips process stays alive after closing GNS3.

Notes for Mac OS X:

OSX 10.7 Lion: to use GNS3 with VirtualBox, you must copy a library included in our GNS3 Application to VirtualBox Application. (i.e. /Applications/GNS3.app/Contents/Resources/VBoxPython2.7.so to /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxPython2.7.so)
Qemu is not included in our DMG. You will have to patch and compile it yourself (sorry!).

We hope you will enjoy this new release and please keep in mind this is BETA. Therefore, if you find any issue, leave a message on our forum. Thank you!

Free GNS3 Video from CBT Nuggets and established partnership

Jeremy — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 22:57:00 +0000

Recently, I learned that Jeremy Cioara – CBT teacher and Super-Star whom I respect very much – created a video (love his educational videos) about our GNS3 network simulator project.

We have established a form of marketing partnership between The GNS3 Project and CBT Nuggets. (Open-Source project and a commercial entity).

We created the GNS3 network simulator for education, so our product and CBT Nugget’s videos are complementary in the field; we’re not competitors. The marketing partnership basically says that CBT releases GNS3 video for free, but we give the credit + link to their website + logo.

New Free GNS3 Video from CBT Nuggets

Video Provided by CBT Nuggets

My own opinion: Jeremy Cioara (from CBT Nuggets) is absolutely the best teacher of advanced Cisco material I’ve ever listened. I absolutely recommend their videos. Here are the demo versions of those videos (first 5 minutes free).

Vyatta 6.3 Qemu image

Jeremy — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 22:56:14 +0000

A new Vyatta 6.3 Qemu image is available on the download page.

Features:

Vyatta Qemu image is adapted to changing MAC address of Ethernet interfaces The default boot option is the serial console even the Vyatta is installed on Qemu/Kvm.

User login/password: vyatta/vyatta Superuser login/password: root/root

Again, thanks to Brezular for this contribution.

. . . → Read More: Vyatta 6.3 Qemu image

Microcore and Tinycore 3.8.2 Qemu images

Jeremy — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:54:33 +0000

New Microcore and Tinycore 3.8.2 Qemu images are available on the download page.

Supported features:

8021q vlan tagging
console to serial port (Microcore image only)
ipv6
ssh server

List of main extensions:

openssh.tcz – 5.8p1
openssl.tcz – 0.9.8r
iproute2.tcz – 2.6.29-1
iptables.tcz – 1.4.10
tcpdump.tcz – 3.9.8
iperf.tcz – 2.0.3
d-itg.tcz – 2.0.7-Beta2
slocate.tcz – 3.1
ipv6-2.6.33.3-tinycore.tcz
mtr.tcz – 0.80

Superuser “root” passoword is: root
Password for user “tc” is not set

Thanks to Brezular for this contribution.

GNS3 VirtualBox Edition

Jeremy — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:59:05 +0000

Thanks to the great and massive contribution of Alexey Eromenko, alias “Technologov”, VirtualBox is now supported in GNS3. Alexey has also added many improvements and fixed bugs, which make his unofficial GNS3 VirtualBox Edition the best GNS3 to date and the one we recommend to use while we are merging Alexey’s contribution to our official branch.

Also, the next official version of GNS3 should be released around October or November, besides merging Alexey’s contribution, GNS3 is going to undertake major changes (redesigning, code refactoring, new unit testing etc.) with the arrival of a new team of programmers from EPITECH Paris to work on the project. This should definitevely helps GNS3 to reach a new level of usability and we are very enthusiastic about it. This will be the topic of our next news in a couple of months.

GNS3 VirtualBox Edition 0.8.1 is available on our download page. Please see below for the changes.

Major Improvements:

VirtualBox support (v4.1 required)
Wireshark Live Traffic Capture
Basic IPv6 enablement
Basic Netbook enablement
Architecture: On Windows, GNS3 now runs from source code
Architecture: PEMU is now moved from GNS3 core to a separate component. (PEMU will be part of Windows “All-in-One” installer)
Architecture: Resolved conflict with Debian’s built-in GNS3 package. On Linux, setup is no longer needed.
Dynagen Console got a massive rewrite / cleanup
Russian translation got a major update

Other Changes and Fixes:

Windows Setup was rewritten from scratch
Changed Default Qemu Ethernet Controller from “e1000″ to “Realtek 8139″ for Windows XP compatibility.
GUI: Swapped AUX & Console icons – more convenient to have “console” button near “start” button.
Disallowed to hot-add new links to running Qemu.
Fixed VM states coherency between Dynagen’s Console and GNS3.
Several fixes for using GNS3 with external qemu/vboxwrappers (multi-host distributed topologies)
GUI: Disabled Linux features on Windows hosts. (KVM, NIO_VDE, NIO_UNIX and NIO Linux Ethernet)
GUI: Disallowed connecting devices with incorrect link types, such as Frame-Relay switches with Ethernet cable.
Fixed the problem of filled WIC slots in Routers (0.7.4 Regression; UldisD’s case)
Fixed SecureCRT (SARS’ case, minor bug; Windows hosting only)
Terminal Emulator Settings: sorted & hide non-platform-related options
Fixed AUX port error messages
Fixed translation file generator
Dynagen Console: ‘hypervisors’, ‘ver’ and ‘versions’ commands are now merged into just ‘ver’.
Dynagen Console: ‘exit’ and ‘disconnect’ commands are now merged into ‘clear topology’.
Dynagen Console: Removed non-working commands: ‘shell’, ‘cpuinfo’, ‘py’, ‘conf’, ‘confreg’, ‘hypervisor’, ‘end’, ‘send’
For full list of changes, see “modified.txt”

VirtualBox / vboxwrapper backend features:

FlexiNetwork: Link hot-add/hot-remove
Traffic Capture
Suspend/Resume VMs
Instant reboot
“automatic” NIC type (just mirrors existing NIC type)
Network statistics (Bytes Transmitted / Bytes Received)
View of Guest OS IP addresses, by retrieving data from Virtual machine (if GuestAdditions installed)
GuestControl execution; send commands from Dynagen console
Double-click on VBOX VM brings it’s display window to front.
Modular design

GNS3 0.7.4

Jeremy — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 22:10:01 +0000

GNS3 0.7.4 is released. This is a minor release before working on a major one and includes the following things:

Greek translation
Hypervisor allocation per IOS type
Improvements on Ethernet Switch (dynamic remapping of VLAN or type)
Adaptations to support Dynamips 0.2.8 RC3 community
Integration of a loopback manager for Windows

Dynamips 0.2.8 RC3 community version released

Jeremy — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:00:10 +0000

We are proud to release Dynamips 0.2.8 RC3 community which is a new and unofficial version of this great software made by Chris Fillot. It is provided without warranty, based on a development version and improved with patches wrote by various people from the community.
It brings many improvements and bug fixes. The most noticable are:

Online Insertion and Removal (OIR) support for c3745 (NM-4T only) and c3660.
c7200: support for jacket card (C7200-JC-PA) and support for PA in slot 7.
New Multicast NIO (not implemented in GNS3/Dynagen).
64-bit support for MacOS X (stack alignment).
NIO traffic statistics (packets/bytes in/out).
QinQ support in integrated Ethernet switch (not fully tested).
JIT code sharing system (only MIPS ported at this time). Works only with a “unstable” compilation.
“udp auto” NIO to avoid fixed port allocation which can easily fail (to be implemented in GNS3/Dynagen).
Possibility to open multiple consoles for a same IOS.
Able to set system id at runtime in cli mode using -I or set_system_id in hypervisor mode (to be implemented in GNS3/Dynagen). This is for routers 1700, 2600, 3600, 3725, 3745 and 7200 (not npe-400 or npe-g1 or 2). System id format is dependent on router, e.g. -I 4279256517 or -I FTX0945W0MY (these are the current defaults).
AUX port for routers 1700 to 3745 now works.
Cisco Pagent and CallGen image support for c1700, c2600, c36xx, c37xx, c7200 NPE-100 to NPE-300.

For more details, please see the README.