Marc Weisel

As of the date of this post, additional steps are required to successfully boot the latest Juniper vJunos-switch version on a system with an AMD CPU for Containerlab . I use Arch as my Linux distribution, but most of the content applies to any distribution. Modify where needed (e.g., package management for tools). Prerequisite Install and configure a lab server with Arch Linux Steps Point your web browser to the Juniper vJunos-switch Downloads page. ...

A lab server is an essential resource for learning and experimentation. It can be used for anything from spinning up a simple virtual networking lab to deploying a complex multi-cluster Kubernetes topology using Vagrant. This post provides an opinionated step-by-step guide for installing and configuring a headless bare-metal lab server using Arch Linux, which can be completed in under an hour. After completing this guide, your lab server will be ready for use with the following projects: ...

The primary network interface of a Vagrant (VMware) machine typically obtains a dynamic IP address from the vmnet-dhcpd process bound to the vmnet8 network. In a multi-machine Vagrant environment, it is preferable to reserve a static IP address for this interface to simplify connectivity with the Mac host for automation purposes. Prerequisites macOS VMware Fusion Pro Vagrant Vagrant VMware Utility vagrant-vmware-desktop Steps Quit the VMware Fusion application. ...

Arista has recently released a cEOS ARM64-based container image. This post will guide you through the process of downloading and importing the container image for Containerlab on macOS. Prerequisite Containerlab with macOS on Apple Silicon macOS Point your web browser to the Arista Software Download page. Log in with your Arista credentials. Click the cEOSarm-lab-4.33.1-EFT3.tar.xz file link to download. Save the cEOSarm-lab-4.33.1-EFT3.tar.xz file to your Downloads folder. ...

The content in this post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. All software rights belong to their respective owners. Cisco recently made the IOS on Linux (IOL) images available through the Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) Free Tier . IOL is an implementation of Cisco IOS-XE that operates as an executable binary on Linux. This post will guide you through the process of creating Cisco IOL container images using Containerlab on macOS. ...

Containerlab is rapidly emerging as a viable solution on macOS, thanks to the increasing availability of ARM64-based NOS container images. The following Containerlab kinds work excellent with macOS on Apple Silicon: Nokia SR Linux Arista cEOS Cisco IOL with Rosetta Prerequisites Mac computer with Apple silicon macOS 14.0 or later Git uv Steps Download OrbStack and open it. Open your favorite terminal emulator. ...

I extensively use Vagrant along with the vagrant-libvirt plugin on my Arch Linux hosts to quickly set up development and lab environments. The plugin is mature and generally feature-complete; however, the latest release was published on June 24, 2023. Since then, multiple commits have been made to the main branch of the project repository. I use the following process rather than the standard installation sourced from RubyGems . Prerequisites Verify these Arch packages are installed: ...

The content in this post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. All software rights belong to their respective owners. I’ve read quite a few tutorials on Netmiko with GNS3, but none of them show you how to directly utilize the console connection as the management interface for Cisco devices. In addition to the CiscoIosSSH driver, Kirk Byers also implemented the CiscoIosTelnet driver for establishing a connection to a Cisco device. This is perfect for GNS3 because the default console connection is essentially a Telnet connection without authentication. ...

The content in this post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. All software rights belong to their respective owners. Cisco recently made the IOS on Linux (IOL) images available through the Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) Free Tier . IOL is an implementation of Cisco IOS-XE that operates as an executable binary on Linux. This post will guide you through the process of adding Cisco IOL devices using GNS3 on macOS. ...

Most GNS3 users are familiar with VPCS . It’s the go-to device for simulating a simple endpoint node in our network labs. VPCS is suitable for the basics, but Docker supplies a selection of more feature-rich endpoint types. This post provides an example using Alpine Linux . Prerequisites GNS3 with macOS on Apple Silicon GNS3 client Steps Open your favorite terminal emulator. Download the latest alpine Docker image from Docker Hub . ...