Hello,

As you know IOL (IOS on Linux), also known as IOU will not natively work on Windows. This is why our strategy is to provide a virtual machine for our Windows users and we are looking for a volunteer to make it, this would save us time so we can concentrate on the actual IOU implementation in GNS3 and I am sure someone would love to technically contribute to the new GNS3 without being a developer.

Currently, the VM has the following requirements (EDITED on 25th of May /2014):

• Must run in VirtualBox (should run in VMware too).
  
• Guest OS should be a Linux Debian based distro, mostly to easily install additional packages using apt-get.
  
• JeOS-like (Just Enough OS), minimal size possible (the VM could be in our all-in-one package and we want to keep the size down). No desktop, only console.
  
• 32-bit for compatibility and this is enough to run many IOU instances.
  
• OS possibly optimized to run as a VM.
  
• Python 3.3 installed with the following Python packages: tornado, pyzmq >= 14.0.0 (requires ZeroMQ libs to be compiled/installed), jsonschema and netifaces-py3 (apt-get install python3-netifaces).
  
• Anything else needed to run IOU: libssl0.9.8, ia32-libs etc. see http://evilrouters.net/2011/01/18/cisco-iou-faq/ for details.
  
• The VM hostname should be gns3-iouvm
  
• pip installed: run the following file using python3 https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/ ... get-pip.py (e.g. python3 get-pip.py)
  
• The executable named iouyap (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gns-3/f ... z/download) must be installed in one of the PATH directory (i.e. /usr/local/bin)
  
• setcap installed(apt-get install libcap2-bin)
  
• The following capability set on iouyap: setcap CAP_NET_RAW+eip /usr/local/bin/iouyap
  
• Cron installed and gns3's cron file (crontab -e -u gns3) contains: @reboot PATH=/usr/local/bin /usr/local/bin/gns3server &
  
• Content of /etc/rc.local file must be the following.

Also, add the following to /etc/sysctl.conf



Inputs/ideas are also welcome.

Thanks!

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Jeremy, GNS3 Programmer & Benevolent Dictator for Life.

How about Centos? Easily install additional packages using yum.

Voyage Linux http://linux.voyage.hk is a Debian based distribution. The basic install is console only, optimized for low-end devices. The size of the ISO file is 59 Mb and the packages can be installed with the standard apt-get and Debian repositories.

I like miguelo's proposal. It fits the specs grossmj wants, and Voyage has a 32-bit and 64-bit version. Has anyone started on this yet? I can help.

I get a kernel panic on boot with Voyage linux running on virtualbox. It's a shame because it's a good choice...the image is really small and ideal for an appliance.

I've searched for tiny debian based distributions and am not coming up with anything. There are distros out there like tinycore, but that's not debian based. If anyone knows of another distribution besides Voyage linux that might fit the bill, this would save alot of effort....either way I'll probably have this done in the next few days.

The best solution I have right now is to take a Debian net install base image and strip it down. After doing that I'm going to clone the image and start experimenting with stripping it down as much as possible. I'll be using this as a guide: https://wiki.debian.org/ReduceDebian

The base install is right around 700mb. I'm aiming to have the final compressed image ready for distribution to be no larger than 350mb. We'll see....

I will load IOU and verify it is functional and that all dependencies have been met after all dependencies are installed (tornado, pyzmq, libssl, python3.3, etc). I'll start out with a 32 bit virtualbox and vmware image.

Hi,



Tinycore would be nice but it is not so easy to extend and they have limited custom software packages... Also, Voyage was a good choice but of course a kernel panic is a deal breaker ;)



That is one of the solution I had in mind. What I am the most interested in is the size of the final .ova when you export the appliance from VirtualBox/VMware.

Another idea I had is to use/create an Ubuntu JeOS (which seem to be unavailable for recent version of Ubuntu). For instance this JeOS Ubuntu 12.04 LTS appliance is only 55MB compressed! Of course, it would be more with the installed dependencies but it would still be incredibly small I think.

https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/sto ... w93wF5Q194



Thank you for your help, you are saving us time :)

_________________
Jeremy, GNS3 Programmer & Benevolent Dictator for Life.

Wouldn't it be good idea not to shrink base install, but rather to EXTEND netinst debian image? Current netinst' image for i386 architecture (debian-7.4.0-i386-netinst.iso) has only 277M...

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If you can see any inaccuracies or other language-related mistakes in my post(s), please forgive me - English is not my native language

The final result here will be a linux appliance, and it needs to be as small as possible while still having all of the required functionality. That 277M net install disc expands out to 700+mb once installed. That's with nothing but the base installation.

Got a vmware image at 250mb compressed with all dependencies installed. This is debian 32bit.

http://fbctechnology.com/GNS3-IOU-vmware.tar.bz2

A little more info on that VM from the previous post...

I forgot to do the symlink for /usr/lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.8 /usr/lib/libcrypto.so.4. This VM will run in either virtualbox or vmware just fine. Cisco IOU is not on this appliance...it simply includes everything needed from the first post in this thread.

If anyone else more skilled than I am with Linux has the time, could you look into this appliance and see if you can find ways to lean it down further? As I said before, the download is 250mb.