Abit IP35Pro
Core2Duo E6550 (@2.66)
2 GB DDR2 RAM
320GB HD
Windows XP & Ubuntu

I started using WindowsXP, but soon i found out that i couldn’t run concurrently >10 routers (i didn’t insist too much on trying this). So i switched to Ubuntu, where after 1 week of trial & error, i managed to create my home environment and then run the sample lab that is provided free at IE’s site. You can find more information on a previous post of mine about this setup.

Afterwards, i started creating mini labs on this setup, based on the topology of IE’s sample lab, “stealing” ideas from the 2 CCIE Practical Studies books and adapting them to a specific physical topology. I started using 3640s as routers and switches (using 12.3(14)T7) but i had a lot of issues with spanning-tree & transparent vtp (it was like spanning tree was getting stuck). So i decided to use 3725s as switches, 3640s as routers and move both routers and switches to latest 12.4 IOS (12.4(17a) at that time).

Although everything was worguide fine in Ubuntu, i had to switch to Windows quite often in order to check some other material i had there, especially my email (although i could read my new emails from inside Ubuntu, i couldn’t read the old ones). Also, i was experiencing strange crashes once in a while in Ubuntu, when restarting dynagen. So i decided to give it one more try and transfer the dynamips/dynagen setup to Windows again.

I had already found the ideal idlepc values for my routers’ ios on Ubuntu, so i was going to use the same on Windows. The biggest difference between Ubuntu & Windows, was that i had to use the sparsemem option in dynagen on Windows (only for routers) in order to decrease memory usage, but even after that, Ubuntu was still using less memory. Also, cpu usage was a little bit higher in Windows, but as long as it stayed below 15%, is wasn’t a problem. Having full configurations on all 13 routers/switches kept the cpu around 40% busy, which was fine by me (in Ubuntu it was under 20%). At the same time, memory usage was around 1.4GB on Windows and under 1 GB in Ubuntu.

I used 2 dynamips processes in order to split the memory usage per process (Windows is said to have a problem with this) and i assigned all routers in one process and all switches + bb routers in the other process (pretty much like IE’s dynamips setup). Btw, you can find a lot of useful info about dynamips/dynagen in http://7200emu.hacki.at/index.php.

This is the general routers/switches dynagen setup i used on Windows:

[[3640]]
 image = C:\images\c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin

 ram = 128
 disk0 = 0
 disk1 = 0
 idlepc = 0x605a5040
 mmap = True
 ghostios = True
 sparsemem = true

[[3725]]
 image = C:\images\c3725-adventerprisek9-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin

 ram = 128
 disk0 = 8
 disk1 = 0
 idlepc = 0x62379ed0
 mmap = True
 ghostios = True

It took me a while until i was able to initialize the setup for every mini-lab i was having. I was spending around 2 hours in order to prepare my setup for each mini-lab. But, after creating a xls table with the differences between my physical topology and the mini-lab topologies, i managed to bring this time down to 20-30 minutes.

Lastly, i had created a pdf file like the following (i created it in Excel, then converted it to PDF and printed it), where for every Mock Lab i was writing the task number, the task points, whether i though i had completed it and some notes about tricky things or things to be looked later.

After finishing each lab, i was comparing my solution to the proctor’s one and i was grading myself. Mostly i was giving myself lower grades for all alternative solutions, until i was 100% sure that my solution was correct too. That way, after finishing all Mock Labs, i was able to see in what parts i had repeatedly made mistakes so that i could focus more on these.

My final advice :
Try to be organized! It’ll make your preparation much easier.
Try to repeat things! It’ll make you exam much easier.

In the meanwhile, i have already decided what exam i’m going to try next, but i won’t reveal it until the poll ends. Of course my pre-preparation has already started…

Btw, i ‘m also searching for a new job. Last weekend i rewrote my CV (it has been a long time since i had updated it) and i have already found 3 “candidate” companies which seem very interesting. But i won’t do anything until the end of this month, because i’m waiting for an offer from my current job.

It took me around 3 hours and here is the procedure for all of you…

Download latest Ubuntu Desktop LiveCD (8.04 beta was available when i did it). You can run it from the CD before installing it (that’s what LiveCDs are all about), if you want to check for any problems (i unfortunately found some regarding my hard disks).

Please keep in mind that this Ubuntu version is still beta, so you shouldn’t try it in a production environment. Also, wubi-installer is finally included officially with Ubuntu 8.04, something that could make you life easier, especially if you need more than just a trial run. So you have these 3 options:

1. Run the Ubuntu LiveCD
2. Install Ubuntu in your windows partition (through wubi)
3. Install Ubuntu in a different partition

For my CCIE preparation i used the 2nd option (you can read more details here); this time i’m using the 3rd one.

After you have tried the LiveCD and you have found and solved all booting problems, you can proceed and install Ubuntu in a free partition in your hard disk. I used a 30 GB partition for the root (/) partition and another 2 GB one for the swap partition (i could use a different one for /home too). You don’t need to create them before the installation. The installation process can create them, as long as you have some free space (or a windows partition not needed).

Regarding my run/install problems, i had to add the “irqpoll” option to the boot options, because otherwise Ubuntu wouldn’t recognize my SATA hard disks (i was getting “ata qc timeout” & “ata revalidation failed” messages). I guess it must be a problem having to do with the JMicron controller of the Abit IP35Pro motherboard (i searched the linux kernel bugs and i found many cases about it). I also removed the “quiet” and “splash” options from the boot parameters line, because i wanted to watch the whole boot process (i don’t like things happening behind my back).

You can use the F6 key before installing (or the grub menu options after Ubuntu has been installed) in order to change the boot options. This is before booting/loading Ubuntu. There is a gui (search for “QGRUBEditor” in Synaptic) for changing permanently these options after you have installed/loaded Ubuntu (besides the obvious method of editing the “/boot/grub/menu.lst” file).

After Ubuntu has been installed and loaded correctly, make sure you have connectivity to the internet (i met some problems with my network setup -having ethernet adapters losing their ip addresses- and i had to run “ifdown eth1″ & “ifup eth1″). Then run the Update Manager and install all the available updates (i found around 250).

Reboot and everything should be worguide fine at this time. If not, search for help in the Ubuntu forums, or try the stable 7.10 version. After all, you should already know that Linux is still harder to learn than Windows.

Ok, let’s start the Dynamips/Dynagen installation now…

Open Synaptic Package Manager and search for “dynamips”. You should find 2 packages : “dynamips 0.2.7-0.2.8RC2-1” & “dynagen 0.10.1-1” (or possibly a newer version of them). Install both of them (i suppose you know how to use Synaptic, or you can use “sudo apt-get”).

Now you should have both packages correctly installed. If you run them through a terminal window, you should get the following output:

xxx@ubuntu:~$ dynamips
Cisco Router Simulation Platform (version 0.2.8-RC2-x86)
Copyright (c) 2005-2007 Christophe Fillot.
Build date: Nov 26 2007 06:40:51

Please specify an IOS image filename
Usage: dynamips [options] 

xxx@ubuntu:~$ dynagen
Usage: dynagen [options] 

xxx@ubuntu:~$ dynagen --version
dynagen 0.10.1.090807

I guess you already have some (already decompressed) IOS around (if it’s compressed, try the “unzip -p” command). Otherwise you wouldn’t mess with dynamips; would you? For my CCIE preparation i used latest 3640 & 3725 12.4 IOS; you can choose other if you like. Create a directory under /usr/share and put your IOS there. Of course you can choose another directory; i just liked the idea of sharing

xxx@ubuntu:~$ sudo mkdir /usr/share/cisco-ios

You can always copy them from your windows directories (which get automatically mounted once you open them through the file browser/nautilus), like it was in my case (sda1, the 1st partition of my first sata hard disk, is drive letter C: in my windows):

xxx@ubuntu:~$ sudo cp "/media/sda1/Program Files/Dynamips/images/c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin" /usr/share/cisco-ios/
xxx@ubuntu:~$ sudo cp "/media/sda1/Program Files/Dynamips/images/c3725-adventerprisek9-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin"  /usr/share/cisco-ios/

Now change the IOS file permissions and make them readable from everyone (you can always use more strict permissions, if you know how and why):

xxx@ubuntu:~$ sudo chmod 744 /usr/share/cisco-ios/*

xxx@ubuntu:~$ cd /usr/share/cisco-ios/
xxx@ubuntu:/usr/share/cisco-ios$ 

xxx@ubuntu:/usr/share/cisco-ios$ ls -al
total 144876
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root     4096 2008-03-29 17:52 .
drwxr-xr-x 286 root root    12288 2008-03-29 17:43 ..
-rwxr--r--   1 root root 65954968 2008-03-29 17:50 c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin
-rwxr--r--   1 root root 82221348 2008-03-29 17:52 c3725-adventerprisek9-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin

Create a new directory in your home folder, where you’ll be storing your own labs. I like to use a folder on the Desktop, so i can very easily manage it (keep in mind that there are other ways too, if you want to put a folder on the desktop). Create another directory inside it, for your first lab. Also, inside each lab directory you’ll need to create a worguide directory for all the “temporary” files (like nvram contents and ghost-ios files) used for your labs.

xxx@ubuntu:~$ cd Desktop/
xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop$ mkdir cisco-labs
xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop$ cd cisco-labs/
xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop/cisco-labs$
xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop/cisco-labs$ mkdir lab1
xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop/cisco-labs$ cd lab1/
xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab1$
xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab1$ mkdir worguide

The directory structure should be like the following:

/home/xxx/Desktop/
/home/xxx/Desktop/cisco-labs/
/home/xxx/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab1/
/home/xxx/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab1/worguide/
/home/xxx/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab2/
/home/xxx/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab2/worguide/
and so on...

Create the following file (“lab1.net” is your test lab) using your favorite editor. I like vi, you can use gedit.

############
# Lab test
############

autostart = False
[localhost:7200]

# Don't forget to change this for every new lab
worguidedir = /home/xxx/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab1/worguide

[[3640]]
  # Specify 3640 IOS image on Linux here:
  image = /usr/share/cisco-ios/c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin
  #
  ram = 128
  disk0 = 0
  disk1 = 0

  # idlepc values are specific to each ios
  idlepc = 0x605a5040

  mmap = True
  ghostios = True
  sparsemem = true

[[Router R1]]
  model = 3640
  console = 2001
  slot0 = NM-1FE-TX
  F0/0 = SW1 F1/1

[[Router R2]]
  model = 3640
  console = 2002
  slot0 = NM-1FE-TX
  F0/0 = SW1 F1/2

[[Router SW1]]
  model = 3640
  console = 2007
  slot1 = NM-16ESW

Now, while in lab1 directory, start dynamips in hypervisor mode and put it in the background (there is still no need to run it as root). Then press enter to see the shell prompt again.

xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab1$ dynamips -H 7200 &
[1] 15052
xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab1$ Cisco Router Simulation Platform (version 0.2.8-RC2-x86)
Copyright (c) 2005-2007 Christophe Fillot.
Build date: Nov 26 2007 06:40:51

Hypervisor TCP control server started (port 7200).

xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab1$

Start dynagen with your first lab as a parameter:

xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab1$ dynagen lab1.net

Reading configuration file...

Shutdown in progress...
Shutdown completed.
CPU0: carved JIT exec zone of 64 Mb into 2048 pages of 32 Kb.
NVRAM is empty, setting config register to 0x2142
C3600 instance 'ghost-c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin-localhost' (id 3):
VM Status  : 0
RAM size   : 128 Mb
NVRAM size : 128 Kb
Chassis    : 3640
IOS image  : /usr/share/cisco-ios/c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin

Loading ELF file '/usr/share/cisco-ios/c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin'...
ELF entry point: 0x80008000

C3600 'ghost-c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin-localhost': starting simulation (CPU0 PC=0xffffffffbfc00000), JIT enabled.

C3600 'ghost-c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin-localhost': stopping simulation.
Network successfully loaded

Dynagen management console for Dynamips
Copyright (c) 2005-2007 Greg Anuzelli

=>

Let’s see the routers and the switches now:

=> list
Name       Type       State      Server          Console
R1         3640       stopped    localhost:7200  2001
R2         3640       stopped    localhost:7200  2002
SW1        3640       stopped    localhost:7200  2007

Ok, let’s start them:

=> start R1
CPU0: carved JIT exec zone of 64 Mb into 2048 pages of 32 Kb.
NVRAM is empty, setting config register to 0x2142
C3600 instance 'R1' (id 1):
VM Status  : 0
RAM size   : 128 Mb
NVRAM size : 128 Kb
Chassis    : 3640
IOS image  : /usr/share/cisco-ios/c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin

Loading ELF file '/usr/share/cisco-ios/c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin'...
ELF loading skipped, using a ghost RAM file.
ELF entry point: 0x80008000

C3600 'R1': starting simulation (CPU0 PC=0xffffffffbfc00000), JIT enabled.
100-VM 'R1' started

=> start R2
CPU0: carved JIT exec zone of 64 Mb into 2048 pages of 32 Kb.
NVRAM is empty, setting config register to 0x2142
C3600 instance 'R2' (id 2):
VM Status  : 0
RAM size   : 128 Mb
NVRAM size : 128 Kb
Chassis    : 3640
IOS image  : /usr/share/cisco-ios/c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin

Loading ELF file '/usr/share/cisco-ios/c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin'...
ELF loading skipped, using a ghost RAM file.
ELF entry point: 0x80008000

C3600 'R2': starting simulation (CPU0 PC=0xffffffffbfc00000), JIT enabled.
100-VM 'R2' started

=> start SW1
CPU0: carved JIT exec zone of 64 Mb into 2048 pages of 32 Kb.
NVRAM is empty, setting config register to 0x2142
C3600 instance 'SW1' (id 0):
VM Status  : 0
RAM size   : 128 Mb
NVRAM size : 128 Kb
Chassis    : 3640
IOS image  : /usr/share/cisco-ios/c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin

Loading ELF file '/usr/share/cisco-ios/c3640-ik9o3s-mz.124-17a.extracted.bin'...
ELF loading skipped, using a ghost RAM file.
ELF entry point: 0x80008000

C3600 'SW1': starting simulation (CPU0 PC=0xffffffffbfc00000), JIT enabled.
100-VM 'SW1' started

=> list
Name       Type       State      Server          Console
R1         3640       running    localhost:7200  2001
R2         3640       running    localhost:7200  2002
SW1        3640       running    localhost:7200  2007
=>

Let’s telnet to R2:

=> telnet R2

By default a new xterm window opens, with the following output:

Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
Connected to Dynamips VM "R2" (ID 2, type c3600) - Console port

% Please answer 'yes' or 'no'.
Would you like to enter the initial configuration dialog? [yes/no]: n

Press RETURN to get started!

We repeat the same procedure for every router/switch and we’re ready to start our configuration.

In case you need to change the telnet client used by dynagen, you can edit the appropriate line found in file ” /etc/dynagen.ini”:

# Uncomment below for Linux
telnet = xterm -T %d -e telnet %h %p > /dev/null 2>&1 &

After you have finished with your lab and want to exit dynagen and dynamips, you can do the following:

=> exit
Exiting...
Shutdown in progress...
Shutdown completed.

xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab1$ pkill dynamips
xxx@ubuntu:~/Desktop/cisco-labs/lab1$
[1]+  Terminated              dynamips -H 7200

This is it! You should now have a fully worguide dynamips environment under latest Ubuntu 8.04.

Posted by Tassos (CCIE

Read this blog here :

CODE

http://ccie-in-3-months.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-use-extended-range-vlans-in-nm.html

Extract from the article :

QUOTE

In case that you don’t already know, in the latest IOS (> 12.4(15)T) you can use extended-range vlans (1006-4094) in your dynamips router/switch (using the NM-16ESW module). Also the vlan database mode is not recommended anymore and you can use the latest config-vlan submode. That way you can replicate more closely the various vendor labs.

I’m using a 3725 as switch, so this is its config in the net file:

The tricky part is that you don’t get any indication of this capability; it’s like a hidden command. But if you try to configure it, it’ll be accepted and it’ll work fine.

CODE

SW1#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line.

and the dynamips wasn`t that much of help in switching

the netsim boson – in my opinion – sucks

maybe the sequential labs somehow good but the stand alone labs not worth it

not so few days ago here in this forum

i found this topic
CODE
http://www.dynamips.cn
it was really useful

i made a topology and i tried to make it cover all the BCMSN requirement

it is 6 access switches with 3 Distribution switches and 2 routers

the switches has a c3725 ios images & the routers has 7200 ios images

here is an image to the topology

i made the topology as meshed as possible

so you can test etherchannel or stp or hsrp glpb

all the switches are connected so you can examine load balance or whatever you like

important notes :

i designed based upon
QUOTE
http://www.internetworkexpert.com/resources/iosonpc.htm
i followed his steps in compile the .net file also made a config files

so you must have their dymanips because they modified it to run on two instance

- which is good to be less overhead on the processor -

do not start all the switches at once it will consume all of your processor

one at time let stable and then start the 2nd one

i tried it and work fine

i hope this lab be useful for you

good luck in your exam

moo2ah sama

download links

CODE
- the .net file and config files

Configuration:

the topology is the same as the Lab1

R1(config-dial-peer)#do show run
Building configuration…

Current configuration : 1929 bytes
!
version 12.3
service timestamps debug datetime msec
service timestamps log datetime msec
no service password-encryption
!
hostname R1
!
boot-start-marker
boot-end-marker
!
!
no aaa new-model
!
resource policy
!
memory-size iomem 5
ip subnet-zero
ip cef
!
!
no ip dhcp use vrf connected
!
!
no ip domain lookup
no ftp-server write-enable
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
interface FastEthernet0/0
ip address 192.168.2.150 255.255.255.0
duplex auto
speed auto
!
interface FastEthernet0/1
no ip address
shutdown
duplex auto
speed auto
!
interface Serial1/0
ip address 10.1.1.1 255.255.255.0
encapsulation frame-relay
no fair-queue
serial restart-delay 0
clockrate 64000
no dce-terminal-timing-enable
frame-relay traffic-shaping
frame-relay interface-dlci 102

autostart = False
[localhost]
port = 7200
udp = 10000
worguidedir = d:\dynamips\8819\tmp\

[[3725]]
image = d:\dynamips\8819\ios\c3725-ipvoice-mz.123-14.T7.bin
confreg = 0×2102
ram = 160
disk0 = 64
disk1 = 64
model = 3725
idlepc = 0×61028000

[[ROUTER R1]]
model = 3725
slot1 = NM-4T
#????????????. ?????Cisco IP Communicator ??????????
F0/0 = NIO_gen_eth:\Device\NPF_{EC1D03DA-37B6-4610-99A7-91898DE0C692}
#
s1/0 = F1 1

[[ROUTER R2]]
model = 3725
slot1 = NM-4T
#???????????? (VM ??) VM??Cisco IP Communicator ??????????
F0/0 = NIO_gen_eth:\Device\NPF_{68AEA1F5-0FF8-4EFF-916D-504A542B6118}
s1/0 = F1 2

[[FRSW F1]]
1:102 = 2:201

??? ?????????????, ???????!
Cisco Voice LAB Setup :http://www.netemu.cn/bbs/thread-4729-1-1.html

???????????CME??http://www.netemu.cn/bbs/thread-5408-1-1.html
R2(config-dial-peer)#do show run
Building configuration…

Current configuration : 1610 bytes
!
version 12.3
service timestamps debug datetime msec
service timestamps log datetime msec
no service password-encryption
!
hostname R2
!
boot-start-marker
boot-end-marker
!
!
no aaa new-model
!
resource policy
!
memory-size iomem 5
ip subnet-zero
ip cef
!
!
no ip dhcp use vrf connected
!
!
no ip domain lookup
no ftp-server write-enable
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
interface FastEthernet0/0
ip address 192.168.150.10 255.255.255.0
duplex auto
speed auto
!
interface FastEthernet0/1
no ip address
shutdown
duplex auto
speed auto
!
interface Serial1/0
ip address 10.1.1.2 255.255.255.0
encapsulation frame-relay
serial restart-delay 0
clockrate 64000
no dce-terminal-timing-enable
!
interface Serial1/1
no ip address
shutdown
serial restart-delay 0
no dce-terminal-timing-enable
!
interface Serial1/2
no ip address
shutdown
serial restart-delay 0
no dce-terminal-timing-enable
!
interface Serial1/3
no ip address
shutdown
serial restart-delay 0
no dce-terminal-timing-enable
!
router rip
network 10.0.0.0
network 192.168.150.0
!
ip classless
!
ip http server
!
!
!
!
control-plane
!