THE ETERNAL STUDENT

Installation & Configuration

Nuno Lobao 2/28/2012

GNS3 How to

Copyright information: This document is destined to be used for educational purposes. It is free for noncommercial purpose. You can copy, distribute, share and alter it the way you wish.

Table of Contents
GNS3 Installation on Windows 7_x64...................................................................................................2 Getting the Tools ............................................................................................................................2 Installing Wireshark Packet Sniffer...................................................................................................3 Installing GNS3 ...............................................................................................................................3 Decompressing the IOS images........................................................................................................8 GNS Configuration Settings .................................................................................................................9 Adding IOS images to GNS3........................................................................................................... 13 Configuring the Idle-PC Values....................................................................................................... 14

GNS3 Installation on Windows 7_x64

Getting the Tools

I am assuming that you are running Windows 7x64, if youre running a 32bit version dont worry the steps are identical, you just need to choose 32bit versions of the software instead of the x64 that Ill be linking here, other than that just follow the procedures and you will be fine. Download 7zip from http://downloads.sourceforge.net/sevenzip/7z920-x64.msi , save it to your computer and install it. As of today 28-2-2012 the current stable version of GNS3 is v0.7.4, although there is a new beta version release GNS3 v0.8.2 BETA2 which we obviously dont want to be getting into right now for obvious reasons. Start your favorite browser and download gns3 from http://www.gns3.net/download/ . Be sure to choose the latest stable version GNS3 v0.7.4 all-in-one, because we dont have any time to loose with futile problems, all our time and effort is dedicated to Cisco studying and problem solving which in my opinion is time and energy consuming enough, but we love it! Ok, save the package to your computer. Download Wireshark from http://wiresharkdownloads.riverbed.com/wireshark/win64/wiresharkwin64-1.6.5.exe and save it to your computer. If you have Microsoft Visio installed on your computer thats fine, thats one of your main tools, but in case you dont have a diagram editor software download Dia from http://dia-installer.de/ its super cool and its free! Since GNS3 all in one package comes with putty we are not going to worry about it. I will assume you have access to the necessary IOS images from Cisco. Note: Regarding Dia and 7zip, i will assume you can install them with no problem at all. Just right click run as administrator and follow the on screen instructions.

Installing Wireshark Packet Sniffer

Install wireshark with elevated privileges feature simply by right clicking and choosing Run as administrator. Follow the instructions, when it asks you to install WinPCap select it and install it, if it prompts you to reboot your system go ahead and reboot it. Simple as it gets.

Installing GNS3
Right click on GNS3 package that you just downloaded and select Run as as administrator,

The User Account Control will ask you if you want to allow the application to run, select Yes

Click Next like is shown in the picture

Press the I Agree button so you can agree with the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.

In this part you can deselect the WinPCAP installation because it was installed along with Wireshark. Click Next after deselecting WinPCAP.

Depending on your hard drive configuration, choose the path to where you want to install GNS3, click next to leave the default path to C:\Program Files (x86)\GNS3. Click Install

Click Finish to complete the installation.

Now you have GNS3 v0.7.4 installed on your computer. Its time to configure it. At this point we need to setup a couple of things before we actually configure GNS3 settings. This is because GNS3 is very picky about paths and naming, expect to have problems with it without really knowing why they are happening, but hey, its free! Lets setup the basics. First we need to configure the folders where the IOS images are going to be stored and the working directory where all our projects are going to be saved. I advise you to try to create these folders GNS_Projects and GNS_IMAGES with no spacing between the words and in the root directory of the drive you are creating them, or at least not too far beyond the root directory. In this example iv created two folders name GNS_Projects and GNS_IMAGES on the root of my C drive.

Now copy the IOS images you have and paste them into the GNS_IMAGES folder.

Decompressing the IOS images

As previously mentioned I use 7zip but you can use any decent image compressor/decompression software but I strongly advise you to use 7zip. Its easy, its powerful and its free! Right click the first image, mouse over 7zip and select Extract Here

In my case Im using c2691-adventerprisek9-mz.124-25c.bin IOS image file, the extracted or decompressed image is named C2691-AS.BIN. For ease of management just rename the extracted image to c2691-adventerprisek9-mz.124-25c.image. Notice that the extension file name has now changed from .bin to .image.

Click Yes to rename the extracted image. Execute these steps for any IOS image you have. Note: You do not have to do this though it enables the IOS images to run faster without the need to wait to the IOS image to be decompressed. Its optional although I do recommend.

GNS Configuration Settings

Open GNS3, the Setup Wizard comes up when we run GNS3 for the first time. Select task 1 Configure and test the path to Dynamips.

Insert the Project and Image directory created earlier like shown in the picture. Click Apply

Now, select the Dynamips tab and in the Working Directory field point to the same GNS_PROJECT folder created earlier. Click Apply and click Test so we can test the Dynamips configuration, if you get a green response saying Dynamips successfully started means that the Dynamips service started successfully which is exactly what we want. Click Apply again.

At this point (hopefully), a security warning should come up asking if you want to allow or deny Dynamips executable to access Private and Public networks. Select Allow Access.

Move on to the Capture tab. Create another folder for the Wireshark captures in the same root directory of the other two folders so you will end up with three folders: 1- C:\GNS_IMAGES 2- C:\GNS_Projects 3- C:\GNS_Captures In the Working directory for capture files in the Capture tab of GNS3 insert the path to the GNS_Captures folder. Click Apply

Select the Qemu tab. In the Working Directory under Qemu General Settings select or paste the path to the GNS_Projects folder. Click Apply and click Test.

A security warning will pop up again; Select Allow Access for both private and public networks. Click Apply again and click OK.

Adding IOS images to GNS3

Now select Step 2 to add the previously decompressed IOS images to GNS3. A new window will appear. Under Settings, select the Image File button on the right and point to the first decompressed image, in my case it was the c2691-adventerprisek9-mz.124-25c.image. Click Save, check the settings in the picture, I use 128Mb of ram for these images because if I use any less they just wont run for me but you can play around with the Ram values if you want. For some work with just 112Mb, for others it runs with 96Mb, I just try to not lose any more time with GNS. Select any other IOS image if you have any and execute the same steps. Note that depending on the IOS image you may need to adjust the Ram value. For example; for the 7000 series I recommend 256Mb Ram. Thats what I use and it works fine for me.

When you are done adding IOS images (dont forget to click Save for every image you add), click the Close button.

Configuring the Idle-PC Values

At this point you just need to drag the router(s) for which you have an IOS image associated to, in my case the c2691 and the c3725. Drag them to the work area. I would not advise you to use the tool bar to start the router(s) as this will start any routers you have in the work space all at the same time. This can cause your computer to crash duo to a 100% CPU utilization. This depends on your hardware but even with a powerful computer the best way to do this is to right click on each router (one at a time) and select Start. Right click again and select Console to get console access. Remember GNS can be quite tricky so try to be gentle with it.

After you start the router you will see in the lower right corner of the screen (Task Manager) the CPU is peeking 100%. To release the CPU from this heavy utilization you need to configure the Idle-PC value.

Right click on the router again and select Idle PC

You need to wait for a little wile for the best values to be calculated, while this task is working a windows will appear like the one bellow

When a new window popup with the Idle PC values, you should select from the drop down box the value or values with an asterisk (*). Note that sometimes none of the presented values have an asterisk and in this case just insert a value by trial and error until your CPU is down between 0% and 3% utilization. If it its more than that run the Idle PC value again until you get 0% or 2% utilization.

After you configure these last settings your all set. Just start studying with your new Cisco home lab. Study hard and have fun.

Best wishes, Nuno Lobao