Packet Tracer vs GNS3 vs VIRL vs Physical Equipment (Part 1). Which is best?

Keep in mind don't forget rack rentals, like INE. If you need to test or lab something but don't need to purchase HW renting some time on real gear to compliment your virtual setup and connect to it is another great option. I agree with David, using GNS3 since its early Dynampis days is the way to go. I use both GNS3 and VIRL and I initially wanted to make VIRL the primary tool using GNS3 is usually quicker. Look at many of David's videos and see how quickly he creates a topology, adds a device, conducts a capture trace etc. Trying to do that in VIRL is a bit of an exercise(in frustration) at times.

Plz what are the hardware requirements for gns 3

How do I get VIRL since I can't get it do to I don't have a company name?

For exp, I want to emulate CME c2800 with GNS3, and thats not possible, so GNS3 it's not able to emulate any cisco device, only device that can run under dynamips 😔

GNS3 is not stable. It works one minute and then stops connecting to GNS3 VM..

Good stuff thanks for these videos. And have a good Christmas!

The major problem with GNS3 is that it loosing its identity and dropping some feautres that was available in past versions... With the previus version it was possible to install and run VM with Network Services, like ZABBIX, PHPMyAdmin, MMonit, and other web based networking tools... using the local LAN, but with the current version isn't... Which is a real pain in the neck... I think that the GNS3 developers have a very narrow vision, and it is only aiming GNS3 do simulate networking skill, and are foggetting that every network must have web based networking tools and we have to also learn to install, configure and troubleshoot them in a lab envirionment, especially with you want to master the networking skills and knowledge.

Thank you David

Thank you, David, for the informative video, the only issue I have with GNS3 is that it doesn't support legacy ASA i.e. 8.2 and it's kinda hit and miss with 8.4 version with Qemu. I understand that the world is moving to virtualization and ASAv is a good alternative that works outta the box, but for real work scenarios, we still need to emulate and test behaviours for legacy systems i.e. upgrade ASA version from 8.0 to 9.x.

This is my only thumb down for GNS3, other than that .. GNS3 is the way to go.

Thank you,

Yassine

Hi David,

I believe you missed out one amazing emulator/simulator called EVE-NG

Awesome

are there some preconfigured GNS3 labs to buy for troubleshooting practice?

I used GNS3 quite a lot before 2.0.

I installed an ASAv image but it's VERY slow taking about 15 mins to boot (yes my virus scanner was disabled) When I finally got into the ASA (it's hugely slow) the ASA has limited IOS license features and is also limited to 100kbps throughput. At this point I gave up and started using my physical devices, I agree cabling is a problem but I had full IOS license features with more than gigabit throughput in the 60 seconds they took to boot. I also tried a vIOS L2 image and had issues either uploading it or booting it or something.

Why is the ASAv so slow and why does it use VNC to connect now?? My GNS3 VM has 4 vcpu @ 4.6ghz & 16GB DDR4 RAM & uses VMware Workstation as the hypervisor.

I hope you can read the pure frustration in the text above. The amount of time I spent searching for images then trying to figure out why they wouldn't upload to the GNS3 VM (vNIC, Windows Firewall, virus software, VPN etc) then finding the limitations with the ASAv and vIOS and the VNC connection to the ASA was too slow to use.

These are great videos and I'd like to use GNS3 more but i can't justify the time it takes to get it all up and running.

sir where did I get iOS images for Gns3 ?

Clarification on the false assumption that GNS3 does not support Switches is a great take away in this video. This misconception is very common and has been that way for a while.

My only issue with GNS in the past was the resources required to run it, which has improved enormously and the fact that for logical reasons it requires IOS images which most people new to Networking would not have or have access to. For example, I basically gave up on GNS3 early this year (before the last major release recently) because I simply found it buggy and was not getting any feedback that could help me resolve issues from the forum.

So I looked around at my options and found that for the CCENT ICND1 I would be fine using Packet Tracer 7.x. It has been working. For sure; for CCNA ICND2 I will definitely need a better solution for Labs... So I took the plunge and signed up for VIRL and purchased the relevant computing power. I was able to get VIRL running to my surprise, relatively fast. within a 24 hour period, and following the Cisco online setup instructions VIRL my setup was up and running under VMWARE workstation. The draw back is that there is a learning curve to work with VIRL.

Unless you settle for a local install, I can't say I found the same ease of setting up GNS3 VM version. I could not get it to work, and never got any reply to questions in the GNS3 forum. So I maintain a current version of GN3 on the same server I have VIRL and as long as I run it locally I have no major issues, when I try to run via VM I get all kinds of errors from GNS3.

I follow David's articles and videos, they have a ton of excellent and useful information, but it drives me crazy not being able to emulate his setups via GNS3 on my computer which exceeds the computing power requirements because of install issues that I do not encounter in Packet Tracer or VIRL. Eventually, I am hoping that as the last version matures, there will be fewer issues at least for newbies to be able to get more support on their website. Is just a matter of time.

VIRL Images are perfect for GNS3....I opted for IOSv instead of using CSRv's for INE's Workbook....CSRv's are very buggy and tend not to save the configs in GNS3....had to manually save them to flash and do a configure replace flash: all the time to get the config back....IOSv worked every time.