The OSPF protocol is a widely used protocol. The major reason being “it is not cisco proprietary”. The OSPF also has a good amount of weightage on the certification exam. While working on my CCNP ROUTE I came across a very interesting lab which involved almost all the basic and advanced configuration of OSPF. The OSPF lab included stub areas, summarization, virtual-links, authentication etc. I have designed this lab in GNS3. You can download the topology file and the router configuration files for this OSPF practice lab.This is the topology used for the labThese are the OSPF challenge tasks for this practice lab.1.)Configure OSPF on all the routers with appropriate network commands.2.)Configure R2 to summarize area 20 with the most specific mask.3.)Configure R1 to always originate default route.4.)Change hello and dead timers between R2 and R3 to your desired value.
Make the network type between R1 and R2 as point-to-point with R1 as the DR.5.)Make area 34 as totally stub area.6.)Use MD5 between R2 and R3 with routemybrain.com as password7.)Find why R1 is not able to ping the R4. Hi there,you are right rupul there has to be a virtual link among the routers of which at least one is connected to the BB area (0).this is how I done it.consol to R2 and type area 23 virtual-link followed by the RID of the R3, (by deafault it chooses the loop backs as RID), and do the same config on R3 with the same are 23 but use the RID of the other ABR i.e RID of R2.then ping the R1 to R4’s wtever interface and u will be replied. It actually creates a virtual link with an assumption that R4 and R3 is directly connected to BB area 0.regards. Hey Aakash,I am able to ping R4 loopback from R1.Procedure:Make area 23 as Virtual link for Area 34Then make Area 34 Stub on both R3 and R4, and it is done!R1#ping 172.16.5.1Type escape sequence to abort.Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 172.16.5.1, timeout is 2 seconds:!!!!!Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 44/84/136 msR1#traR1#traceroute 172.16.5.1Type escape sequence to abort.Tracing the route to 172.16.5.11 172.16.13.2 36 msec 40 msec 40 msec2 172.16.24.3 44 msec 60 msec 52 msec3 172.16.35.2 72 msec 116 msec.R1#.
![Cisco Gns3 Lab Cisco Gns3 Lab](http://www.networkninja.co.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Setup-CCIE-R-and-S-Lab-in-GNS3-using-Cisco-IOS.jpg)
This lab is an advanced CCIE service provided lab that I discovered on one of the many Cisco forums online dedicated to providing help to Cisco students and network engineers alike. I tough that it was an excellent practice scenario for anyone studying for the service provider exam or if you just like gain a better understand of MPLS.This lab was originally created by P.Kaczor, CCIE #24301.
In the recent years, virtualization technology has advanced to the point that nearly everything can be virtualized. Started from server and storage virtualizations, to (SDN), the entire datacenter technology is trending to the direction of moving away from physical infrastructure.
![Lab Lab](http://www.i-1.nl/blog/wp-content/uploads/ccie-voice-vmware-gns3-diagram-1.0-300x225.jpg)
If the production network is going virtual, for fellow network engineers, certification students and Cisco Academy trainers, there is no reason to use physical devices for your lab testing and learning purposes. There are several network simulation and emulation tools available, for example, Packet Tracer, GNS3, Cisco VIRL, Cisco IOU and UNetLab. I have used them all. They all have their advantages and disadvantages.
In this article, I will compare Cisco VIRL with the most commonly used GNS3 and explain my top four reasons why Cisco VIRL is better than GNS3.GNS3 and Cisco IOUis a well-known free network simulation platform that has been around for many years. Cisco IOS on UNIX (IOU) is another option for running Cisco routers in virtual environment. It is a fully working version of IOS that runs as a user mode UNIX (Solaris) process. IOU was built as a native Solaris image and runs just like any other program.
One key advantage that Cisco IOU has is that it does not require nearly as much resources as GNS3 and VIRL would require. However, the legality of the source of Cisco images for GNS3 is questionable. If you are not an authorized Cisco employee or trusted partner, usage of Cisco IOU is potentially a legal gray area. Because of lack of publicity and availability to average certification students and network engineers, online resources are limited and setting up a network takes much more effort. Also, due to missing features and delays in supporting the recent Cisco image releases, Cisco is not recommending them to engineers and students. Here Comes Cisco VIRLCisco Virtual Internet Routing Lab is a software tool Cisco developed to build and run network simulations without the need for physical hardware.Under the hood, VIRL is an OpenStack-based platform that runs IOSv, IOSvL2, IOS XRv, NX-OSv, CSR1000v, and ASAv software images on the built-in hypervisor. VIRL provides a scalable, extensible network design and simulation environment using the VM Maestro front-end.
Recently, I have seen extensive development and improvement made on the browser based operations using HTML5. VIRL also has extensive ability to integrate with third-party vendor virtual machines such as Juniper, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, F5 BigIP, Extreme Networks, Arista, Alcatel, Citrix and more.Cisco VIRL is community-supported and is designed for individual users. For enterprise users who want TAC support, in-depth documentation, training and more, there is (CML), an enterprise version of VIRL. Of course the CML version costs much more. Cisco VIRL PE costs $199 per year and supports up to 20 concurrent simulated nodes. Why VIRL is Better Than GNS3 Official Cisco imagesVIRL comes with a complete set of legal and licensed Cisco IOS images that are the same as those running on physical routers.
(I’m sure there were tweaks done to optimize them running in a virtual environment) The new Cisco IOS releases are provided in a regular basis. Runs on Most ComputersThe minimum hardware requirement for VIRL is an Intel-based computer with four (not physical CPUs), 8GB of RAM and 70 GB free disk space. Most of the recent computers come with Intel i5 and i7 processors have four cores (with some exception). Of course more resources allow for larger simulations. Cisco suggests larger memory, such as 12GB for 20 nodes, 15GB for 30 nodes, or 18GB for 40 nodes.
Each Cisco IOS-XRv node requires 3GB of memory to launch. In my experience, the only thing that is likely to stop you is the amount of memory installed on the computer.
Computer memory is now inexpensive. You just need to ensure that your computer has enough empty slots to install additional memory. Flexible Installation OptionsYou can install a VIRL on an enterprise-grade server infrastructure, a desktop computer, a laptop, or even on the cloud. You can, Player or VMware.
As opposed to running on a hypervisor, some choose to build VIRL on a bare-metal computer to achieve maximum performance.Once your VIRL lab is up and running, it is an all-in-one virtual networking lab that has no wires and cords attached. When you run it as a VM, you can scale, migrate and implement high availability (HA) by taking advantage of the features that VMware infrastructure has to offer. Automatic ConfigurationThe AutoNetkit, which comes with VIRL, can assign IP addresses to the nodes automatically when they launch, and it will even set up some basic routing protocols for you. The bootstrap configuration gives you a fully converged network as soon as they are launched. And you can go straight to the features and focus on what you want to test.
This is a cool feature for network engineers who want to set up a one-time temporary environment to look up commands and test certain features. If you were building a network topology from scratch, or creating a mockup a production environment, manual IP addressing is recommended. Community Support by DevelopersVIRL is supported by a full of good people like you. Questions are often answered first-hand by developers and engineers. The Cisco VIRL team offers monthly webinars and newsletters to keep the community updated on new feature releases and announcements. You can find the online community on.