Spice Up Your Knowledge!!!: GNS3 install guide for IOU support

I have been waiting for long long time and finally it's here!!! GNS3 with IOU support. Now run "n" number of devices effortless. Today we will discuss about fresh instalation & setup of GNS3 with IOU support.

First of all you need to grab a copy of the GNS3 software at www.gns3.com and click through the install process.

To get the IOU running you need to get the current .OVA file which you can download it from from here

Import the .OVA file into VMware and start the virtual machine. Once started you should see the VM IP address, if not logon with username root and password cisco and use the ifconfig command to see the IP address

Now open a web browser and access IP address on port 8000, in our case it is http://192.168.233.128:8000/upload and upload the IOU image. Before proceeding you need to download the IOU image for Switch & Router & Google is the best friend :-)

Now in our example we have uploaded the image "i86bi-linux-l2-adventerprisek9-15.1a.bin" for switch and "i86bi-linux-l3-adventerprisek9-15.4.1T.bin" for router.

Apply the IOU License on GNS3 in "Path to IOURC" as show below. If you don't have one, generate a key using the python script. Again google is your friend. I will not able to cover it in detail here as it's a copyright material.

Start GNS3, go to Edit => Preferences => GNS3 server => Remote servers & add the Host as "VM IP address", Port as "8000" and click Add & Apply.

Now navigate to Edit => Preferences => "IOS on UNIX" => IOU devices & click on new.

Select the Server type as "Remote" and in Remote servers select the check box "Load balance across all available remote servers", Run on server will be already selected and gray out (Note: If it is not visiable close and open GNS3) & click on "Next"

Give a "Name", "IOU Image path" past the path to your image files in the virtual machine which we have uploaded few steps back, in our scenario its /home/gns3/GNS3/images/i86bi-linux-l2-adventerprisek9-15.1a.bin for switch & "Type" as L2 Image for Switch & /home/gns3/GNS3/images/i86bi-linux-l3-adventerprisek9-15.4.1T.bin for router "Type" as L3 Image for Router