Hi,

you don't have to be stuck with Cisco or Juniper if you want to setup routing in your network. There are other alternatives and some of them cost you only the time you need to get them working.
There is Qemu host implemented in GNS3 which gives you a possibility to run your own linux/unix router running on Qemu. Qemu is managed with Qemuwrapper that is part of GNS3.

I loaded the extension Quagga to Linux Microcore and get working Linux router. There is a simple how to:

topic2282.html

Unfortunately Quaaga wasn't compiled for ipv6 routing protocol and I was not succesful with making my own binary extension Quaaga for ipv6 routing support.

On the other hand there are some embedded Linux/Unix router distribution you can use with Qemu and run from GNS3.

I like BSD Router Project (BSDRP) which is based on FreeBSD with Quagga and XORP routing suite. If you like to get BSDRP working in GNS3, there are steps which you need to do in Linux:

1. Download the new install image BSDRP_0.32_full_i386_vga.img [60MB]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bsdrp/f ... 2/download

2. Unpack the image with bunzip2

bunzip2 BSDRP_0.32_full_i386_vga.img.bz2

3. Convert the raw image BSDRP_0.32_full_i386_vga.img to gcow2 (Qemu format) to get smaller size of image (recommended)

qemu-img convert -f raw -O qcow2 ./BSDRP_0.32_full_i386_vga.img ./BSDRP_0.32_full_i386_vga.img.gcow2

Delete raw image and rename .gcow2 back to .img
rm ./BSDRP_0.32_full_i386_vga.img
mv ./BSDRP_0.32_full_i386_vga.img.gcow2 ./BSDRP_0.32_full_i386_vga.img

4. Configure Qemu Host seeting
Go to GNS3-> Edit-> Preferences-> Qemu-> Qemu host

Please, see the attachement bellow.
Optionally you may choose a new router icon for BSDRP (GNS3-> Edit-> Symbol Manager)

5. Run the Qemu host (router)
Login: root
password:

To get quagga console, type:
cli

To get XORP console you have to start xorp-rtrmgr process first:
xorp-rtrmgr -b /usr/local/etc/xorp.conf &

after that you can start console:
xorpsh

For more information and configuration examples, please visit links:



Cheers,

_________________
Brezular

http://brezular.wordpress.com

Excellent, I'll probably post your howtos on the blog when I have some time.

_________________
Jeremy
GNS3 Staff