published: 8th of June 2019
I recently purchased Narbiks CCIE routing and switching v5.1 workbook bundle. Some of the labs in the workbook use devices with serial interfaces. I run most of my lab in Vagrant/KVM/Qemu. Qemu does not support serial interfaces and I dont have any physical devices any more. Shit! What now?
After searching around, both GNS3 and EVE-NG looked promising. I have not used GNS3 for years and support for devices with serial interfaces is mostly supported using the Dynamips emulator. I didnt want to go down that route unless really necessary. The workbook was written to be compatible with EVE-NG and IOL images looks to be well supported. There is a bit of messing around with licensing to get it working and its probably legally pretty shaky so I didnt want to use that either. In another life I worked at a $NETWORK_VENDOR and long story short I had an old WEB-IOL VM that I had held on to. I fired it up and after 7 years in cold storage what do you know. It worked!
The below NETMAP file is used to build the topology for the workbook.
/* Narbik CCIE R&S v5.1 workbook NETMAP */
/* Device to hostname mapping */
/* R1 -> R1 */
/* R2 -> R2 */
/* R3 -> R3 */
/* R4 -> R4 */
/* R5 -> R5 */
/* R6 -> R6 */
/* R7 -> R7 */
/* R8 -> R8 */
/* R9 -> R9 */
/* R10 -> R10 */
/* R11 -> SW1 */
/* R12 -> SW2 */
/* R13 -> SW3 */
/* R14 -> SW4 */
/* SWITCHES: * R1: * -c R1.txt -e1 -s3 */
/* SWITCHES: * R2: * -c R2.txt -e1 -s3 */
/* SWITCHES: * R3: * -c R3.txt -e1 -s3 */
/* SWITCHES: * R4: * -c R4.txt -e1 -s3 */
/* SWITCHES: * R5: * -c R5.txt -e1 -s3 */
/* SWITCHES: * R6: * -c R6.txt -e1 -s3 */
/* SWITCHES: * R7: * -c R7.txt -e1 -s1 */
/* SWITCHES: * R8: * -c R8.txt -e1 -s1 */
/* SWITCHES: * R9: * -c R9.txt -e1 -s1 */
/* SWITCHES: * R10: * -c R10.txt -e1 -s1 */
/* SWITCHES: * R11: * -c SW1.txt -e6 -s0 * l2 */
/* SWITCHES: * R12: * -c SW2.txt -e6 -s0 * l2 */
/* SWITCHES: * R13: * -c SW3.txt -e6 -s0 * l2 */
/* SWITCHES: * R14: * -c SW4.txt -e6 -s0 * l2 */
/* Serial Connections */
1:1/2 2:1/1 /* R1 to R2 */
1:1/3 3:1/1 /* R1 to R3 */
1:2/0 4:1/1 /* R1 to R4 */
1:2/1 5:1/1 /* R1 to R5 */
1:2/2 6:1/1 /* R1 to R6 */
2:1/3 3:1/2 /* R2 to R3 */
2:2/0 4:1/2 /* R2 to R4 */
2:2/1 5:1/2 /* R2 to R5 */
2:2/2 6:1/2 /* R2 to R6 */
3:2/0 4:1/3 /* R3 to R4 */
3:2/1 5:1/3 /* R3 to R5 */
3:2/2 6:1/3 /* R3 to R6 */
4:2/1 5:2/0 /* R4 to R5 */
4:2/2 6:2/0 /* R4 to R6 */
5:2/2 6:2/1 /* R5 to R6 */
/* Ethernet Network */
11:0/1 1:0/0 /* SW1 to R1 */
11:0/2 2:0/0 /* SW1 to R2 */
11:0/3 3:0/0 /* SW1 to R3 */
11:1/0 4:0/0 /* SW1 to R4 */
11:1/1 5:0/0 /* SW1 to R5 */
11:1/2 6:0/0 /* SW1 to R6 */
11:1/3 7:0/0 /* SW1 to R7 */
11:2/0 8:0/0 /* SW1 to R8 */
11:2/1 9:0/0 /* SW1 to R9 */
11:2/2 10:0/0 /* SW1 to R10 */
11:3/0 12:3/0 /* SW1 to SW2 */
11:3/1 12:3/1 /* SW1 to SW2 */
11:3/2 12:3/2 /* SW1 to SW2 */
11:4/0 13:4/0 /* SW1 to SW3 */
11:4/1 13:4/1 /* SW1 to SW3 */
11:5/0 14:5/0 /* SW1 to SW4 */
11:5/1 14:5/1 /* SW1 to SW4 */
12:0/1 1:0/1 /* SW2 to R1 */
12:0/2 2:0/1 /* SW2 to R2 */
12:0/3 3:0/1 /* SW2 to R3 */
12:1/0 4:0/1 /* SW2 to R4 */
12:1/1 5:0/1 /* SW2 to R5 */
12:1/2 6:0/1 /* SW2 to R6 */
12:1/3 7:0/1 /* SW2 to R7 */
12:4/0 14:4/0 /* SW2 to SW4 */
12:4/1 14:4/1 /* SW2 to SW4 */
12:5/0 13:5/0 /* SW2 to SW3 */
12:5/1 13:5/1 /* SW2 to SW3 */
13:2/0 8:0/1 /* SW3 to R8 */
13:2/1 9:0/1 /* SW3 to R9 */
13:3/0 14:3/0 /* SW3 to SW4 */
13:3/1 14:3/1 /* SW3 to SW4 */
14:2/2 10:0/1 /* SW4 to R10 */IOL is a bit of an ancient monster. It was (maybe still is) used internally at $NETWORK_VENDOR so there is very little documentation out in the wild for it. Luckily I some how managed to remember how to drive it. There are pirate copies out there, but most of the world has moved onto GNS3/EVE-NG/VIRL etc... use one of those instead. Unless of course you are a tragic/weird/unhinged individual like me then knock yourself out.
https://micronicstraining.com/product/rs-workbook-bundle-v5-0/
https://www.eve-ng.net/documentation/howto-s/62-howto-add-cisco-iou-iol
https://docs.gns3.com/1o4IX8nXISl5gb4BwoSFrUht3MeTjkzHM1TCeWAe669g/index.html