How to create a new GNS3 appliance template to work with SONiC using GNS3 Desktop Client?

GNS3 doesn’t come with a SONiC image pre-installed… but don’t worry! 😊

You can easily add SONiC to GNS3 without getting into any complicated stuff. This guide breaks it down into simple steps that you can follow without any trouble. It gives you all the things you need to make your network tests even cooler 😎

So, let's go on this journey together. We'll smoothly mix SONiC into your GNS3 world – it's a piece of cake! 🚀😉

Please note there are different ways to add SONiC images to GNS3, and this is just one of them.

Prerequisites

  • A functional installation of the GNS3 Desktop Client on your system.
  • Access to the requisite SONiC image.
  • A fundamental understanding of networking concepts and familiarity with GNS3 operations.

Step 1: Opening GNS3 Desktop

  1. Launch the GNS3 Desktop Client on your computer.

  2. In the top-left corner, click on File and select New template from the dropdown menu.

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Step 2: Creating a New Template

  1. In the window that has opened, select Manually create a new template and click Next.

    2.png

  2. From the options on the left side, choose Qemu VMs and click the New button at the bottom of the screen to add a new template.

    3.png

  3. Enter a name for the new template; for ex. sonic-test-28-06

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Step 3: Configuring Template Settings

  1. Change the RAM setting from 256MB to 4096MB and set the QEMU binary to /bin/qemu-system-x86_64 (v.4.2.1) as shown on the screen. Click Next if everything is correct.

    4.png

Step 4: Selecting Console Type

  1. Choose telnet from the drop-down list and click Next

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Step 5: Uploading the SONiC image

Where you can find the SONiC VS image?

To find and download the newest version of the SONiC VS image, please visit the below page.
https://sonic-net.github.io/SONiC/sonic_latest_images.html

    1. Select a SONiC image. You can use an existing one or upload a new image.
    2. If using a new image, click New Image, click Browse button and navigate to the .img file that you downloaded on your PC. Wait for the upload progress window to appear. Once the upload is successful, click the Finish button.

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Step 6: Template Configuration

Configure the template settings for your SONiC appliance. On the left side of the screen, click on the icon depicted below, then right-click on the newly created template and select Configure template

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Make the changes shown below.

General settings tab:

  • Change the Category to Routers.
  • Change vCPUs to 2.

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HDD tab:

  • Change Disk interface to virtio.

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Network tab:

Note

The Adapters field specifies the number of network interfaces the device should have. The First port name field specifies the first port which is equivalent to the management port in SONiC, so it should be set to eth0. In this case, we configured 10 adapters. The first adapter is eth0 and the remaining 9 adapters are assigned to the Ethernet ports. The Ethernet port numbering starts from 0, so the ports will be named as follows: Ethernet0, Ethernet1,...,Ethernet8.

  • Change Adapters to 10.
  • Change First port name to eth0

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Step 7: Applying Changes

After making all the changes, click the "OK" button at the bottom of the screen.

Congratulations!

You have successfully created a SONiC template in GNS3. Now you can utilize SONiC in your GNS3 network simulations.

Happy Networking !!! 😉

 

 

 

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