CISCO IOS 12.x Virtual Switch

Thu Jul 21 02:19:03 UTC 2011

On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 7:53 PM, Daniel Espejel
<daniel.unam.ipv6 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you very much, now I'll try to perform some deployments over a
> C3600 w/NS module.

Unfortunately that is only a limited reproduction of what happens in a switch,
making it a nice toy.   Having an ability to simulate the execution of the IOS
control software  through CPU emulation is one thing;

Real switches, including a real NM-16-ESW etherswitch module contain some
proprietary hardware ASICs.  RA guard, and similar functions  are hardware
features  on switches that can sustain any sort of reasonable production load.

GNS clearly tries to simulate the interface between a NM16ESW module
and the host.
But last I checked, no ASICs were being reverse-engineered for the
benefit of GNS.

Which would be one reason GNS cannot simulate Catalyst,  and the reason
NM16ESW is only simulated at a very high level.

So, err, this is no replacement for testing RA guard on  real hardware,
sorry.

> Daniel Espejel Perez
--
-JH