Viability of GNS3 network simulation for testing features/configurations.

Wed Oct 16 20:54:39 UTC 2019

Thanks Mike for the info on GNS3…. My info is old, I’ll have to take a look at the recent GNS3 sometime soon…

-Aaron

From: Mike Bolitho [mailto:mikebolitho at gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 1:22 PM
To: Aaron Gould
Cc: Tom Beecher; Ryland Kremeier; nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: Viability of GNS3 network simulation for testing features/configurations.

EVE-NG is also really good. Just an FYI, GNS3 went through a major refresh about 18 months ago or so and it's so much better now. Either way, you can't go wrong with GNS3 or EVE-NG.

- Mike Bolitho

On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 11:18 AM Aaron Gould <aaron1 at gvtc.com> wrote:

Oh, forgot the links…

http://www.eve-ng.net/

http://www.eve-ng.net/documentation/howto-s

From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces at nanog.org] On Behalf Of Aaron Gould
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 1:14 PM
To: 'Mike Bolitho'; 'Tom Beecher'; 'Ryland Kremeier'
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: RE: Viability of GNS3 network simulation for testing features/configurations.

I’ve used GNS3 some years ago for a lot of simulation and testing.  But, I’m blown away at how much more I like EVE-NG (emulated virtual environment next-gen)

I use the community free version… lots of vendor OS support… of which, I’ve actually work with the following….

-        XRv

-        IOS virtual

-        vMX

-        vSRX

-        vQFX

…check your in-box for a screen shot of my current environment.

-Aaron

From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces at nanog.org] On Behalf Of Mike Bolitho
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 12:02 PM
To: Tom Beecher
Cc: <nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Re: Viability of GNS3 network simulation for testing features/configurations.

Totally agree with Tom here. It's going to work really well for most things. But if you're testing code for bugs you NEED to do it on the same hardware you have in your environment in an actual lab.

- Mike Bolitho

On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 9:56 AM Tom Beecher <beecher at beecher.cc> wrote:

GNS3 can do a heck of a lot, and the price is definitely right. 

I have used it extensively for initial fleshing out of designs or ideas, protocol nerding, automation interaction testing, etc. There certainly other tools out there, but being able to visually draw a topology out, connect the dots, and have an environment to test in about 10 minutes is very nice. There is an API you can hook into to do some of that for you if you are so inclined, but that would depend on your use case and resources. For how I've used it, never been required. 

Some of the VMs from vendors can be pretty CPU and/or RAM intensive, so I've had the best experience running them all on a dedicated server, not locally. Again, use case dependent. For code testing I would always run the test set on hardware as well for likely obvious reasons. 

If you really get into the weeds with it you can do quite a lot.

On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 11:52 AM Ryland Kremeier <rkremeier at barryelectric.com> wrote:

Hello,

I’m currently in the process of setting up a near identical network to our own in GNS3 for testing purposes. Has anyone here tried this before to any success? We need to buy the Cisco IOSv image to continue with the sim so I figured I would inquire here first before diving in.

All info is appreciated,

-- 

Ryland Kremeier

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