Add Cisco IOL to Containerlab on macOS

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....

February 8, 2025 · 3 min

Netmiko with GNS3 console connection

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....

December 18, 2024 · 12 min

Add Cisco IOL devices to GNS3 on macOS

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....

November 27, 2024 · 2 min

Add Cisco routers for Dynamips to GNS3 on macOS

The content in this post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. All software rights belong to their respective owners. Dynamips may seem to be a bygone technology for the present day, but it’s still a great solution for learning routing concepts on emulated Cisco router platforms. Want to kick it old school with the Cisco 7200 Series Router? No problem. You can run 20 virtual instances on your Mac without it even breaking a sweat....

May 11, 2024 · 2 min

Add Cisco IOSv devices to GNS3 on macOS

The content in this post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. All software rights belong to their respective owners. The Cisco IOSv and IOSv L2 devices could be considered the standard for learning Cisco routing and switching in the confines of a virtual network environment. They’re light in resource usage and contain a vast feature set. Prerequisites Cisco Modeling Labs subscription GNS3 with macOS on Apple Silicon macOS Point your web browser to the CML Software Download page....

May 9, 2024 · 3 min

Wireshark with Vagrant point-to-point (UDP tunnel) links

Vagrant supports three types of networks: public, private, and port-forwarding. The private network type has the option to use a UDP tunnel for a point-to-point link when using the vagrant-libvirt plugin. This connection type is ideal for links between virtual network devices. Refer to the following resources if you need more information: Pseudo-wires With Vagrant and Libvirt vagrant-libvirt Networks Vagrant Private Networks The only drawback with this type of connection is concerning packet sniffing....

February 12, 2020 · 3 min

Cisco CSR 1000v Vagrant Box for VMware Fusion

Why not add the CSR 1000v to round out our collection of Cisco virtual appliances? Similar to the Cisco Nexus 9000v, each instance of the Cisco CSR 1000v requires a considerable amount of hardware resources to run. Again, I recommend a Mac with at least 16GB of memory and a dual-core CPU if you plan to run more than a single instance. Ingredients used in this guide: macOS Mojave (10....

February 13, 2019 · 6 min

Cisco Nexus 9000v Vagrant Box for VMware Fusion

The Cisco Nexus 9000v shares the same software image as its hardware counterpart, so it provides a terrific solution for feature testing and/or network automation. The only caveat is the hardware resources required to run it. I recommend a Mac with at least 16GB of memory and a dual-core CPU. Ingredients used in this guide: macOS Mojave (10.14) VMware Fusion 11 Pro Vagrant 2.2.3 VMware provider for Vagrant Cisco Nexus 9000v Switch Steps 1....

February 1, 2019 · 5 min

Cisco IOS XRv Vagrant Box for VMware Fusion

And yet another virtual network appliance to Vagrantize… Ingredients used in this guide: macOS Mojave (10.14) VMware Fusion 11 Pro Vagrant 2.2.3 VMware provider for Vagrant Cisco IOS XRv Router v6.1.3 The Cisco IOS XRV Router image is available as part of your Cisco VIRL subscription. Steps 1. Convert the disk image format type. The Cisco IOS XRv Router is provided in the qcow2 (QEMU) disk image format. The QEMU disk image utility (qemu-img) is required to convert the disk image to the vmdk (VMware) format....

January 6, 2019 · 7 min

Cisco Security Device Manager on the Mac

Cisco Router and Security Device Manager (SDM) is a Web-based device-management tool that enables you to deploy and manage the services on a Cisco IOS router. Even if you decide to do your initial configuration with the CLI, the Monitoring mode of SDM is a great way to display a graphical real-time pulse of the state of your router. The SDM application can run either as an application installed on your Windows PC or from the router’s flash thru the web browser....

May 8, 2011 · 6 min