Heavy Networking 556: The State Of GNS3 For Network Labs

GNS3 is a tool that folks use to create virtual networks for labbing purposes. The environment allows you to run binaries under QEMU, Docker container images, and virtual machines, plumbing them together using an intuitive UI. GNS3 is a sort of magic, and it’s free. To be clear, you have to supply your own networking device images to run in the GNS3 environment. GNS3 is just that–an environment to run device images you have the legal rights to run. But GNS3 is the environment that makes it easy to plumb those images together and see what they can do. There are certainly other tools in this space both open source and commercial, but GNS3 happens to be my go-to for lab work. In this episode, Heavy Networking welcomes GNS3 co-founder and developer Jeremy Grossman and networking instructor David Bombal. We’re going to cover the state of GNS3 in 2021, including what GNS3 can do that maybe you didn’t know, and what’s on the roadmap. If the last thing you did in GNS3 was calculate an idle PC value, there are a ton of new capabilities for you to catch up on. Show Links: GNS3 GNS3 Docs GNS3 Community GNS3 Academy David Bombal’s YouTube channel GNS3 Docker Persistent Containers – YouTube Submitting a new appliance template – GNS3.com David Bombal on Twitter