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.
Prerequisite
macOS
Point your web browser to the CML Software Download page.
Click the Download icon for Cisco Modeling Labs reference platform ISO file (October 2024).
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Log in with your Cisco.com (CCO ID) credentials when prompted.
Save the
refplat-20241016-freetier-iso.zip
file to your Downloads folder.Open your favorite terminal emulator, and change to the
Downloads
directory.
cd ~/Downloads
- Create the
cml28-refplat
directory.
mkdir -p cml28-refplat
- Uncompress the
refplat-20241016-freetier-iso.zip
file into thecml28-refplat
directory.
unzip refplat-20241016-freetier-iso.zip -d cml28-refplat
- Attach the
refplat-20241016-freetier.iso
file.
open cml28-refplat/refplat-20241016-freetier.iso
- Create the
IOU
directory.
mkdir -p ~/GNS3/images/IOU
- Copy the IOL L2 image to the
IOU
directory.
cp /Volumes/REFPLAT/virl-base-images/ioll2-xe-17-15-01/x86_64_crb_linux_l2-adventerprisek9-ms.iol ~/GNS3/images/IOU
- Copy the IOL image to the
IOU
directory.
cp /Volumes/REFPLAT/virl-base-images/iol-xe-17-15-01/x86_64_crb_linux-adventerprisek9-ms.iol ~/GNS3/images/IOU
- Detach the
refplat-20241016-freetier.iso
file from Finder.
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GNS3
Open the GNS3 client application.
Click the Settings button.
Select IOU Devices on the left side menu.
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IOL L2
Click the New button.
Enter
IOL L2
for the Name value.Select L2 image for Type.
Click the Browse… button.
Navigate to and select the
x86_64_crb_linux_l2-adventerprisek9-ms.iol
file.- Click the Show Options button.
- Use
All file (*)
in the file extension drop-down menu.
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Click the Open button.
Click the Finish button after the upload completes.
Click the Edit button for the IOL L2 template.
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Enter
SW{0}
for the Default name format value.Enter
:/symbols/affinity/square/blue/switch_multilayer.svg
for the Symbol value.Click the OK button.
Click the Apply button to save the template configuration.
IOL
Click the New button.
Enter
IOL
for the Name value.Select the New Image button.
Select L3 image for Type.
Click the Browse… button.
Navigate to and select the
x86_64_crb_linux-adventerprisek9-ms.iol
file.- Click the Show Options button.
- Use
All file (*)
in the file extension drop-down menu.
Click the Open button.
Click the Finish button after the upload completes.
Click the Edit button for the IOL template.
Enter
R{0}
for the Default name format value.Enter
:/symbols/affinity/circle/blue/router2.svg
for the Symbol value.Click the OK button.
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- Click the OK button to save and close the Preferences window.
Happy Labbing!
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