Run VyOS on GNS3

You may want to test VyOS in a lab environment. GNS3 is a network emulation software that you can use for this purpose.

This guide will provide the necessary steps for installing and setting up VyOS on GNS3.

Requirements

The following items are required:

  • A VyOS installation image (.iso file). You can find how to get it on the Installation page

  • A working GNS3 installation. For further information see the GNS3 documentation.

VM setup

First, a virtual machine (VM) for the VyOS installation must be created in GNS3.

Go to the GNS3 File menu, click New template, and select Manually create a new Template.

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Select Qemu VMs and then click the New button.

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Write a name for your VM, such as “VyOS”, and click Next.

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Select qemu-system-x86_64 as Quemu binary, then 512MB of RAM and click Next.

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Select telnet as your console type and click Next.

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Select New image for the base disk image of your VM and click Create.

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Use the defaults in the Binary and format window and click Next.

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Use the defaults in the Qcow2 options window and click Next.

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Set the disk size to 2000 MiB, and click Finish to end the Quemu image creator.

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Click Finish to end the New QEMU VM template wizard.

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Now you need to edit the VM settings.

In the Preferences window, with Qemu VMs selected and your new VM selected, click the Edit button.

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In the General settings tab of your QEMU VM template configuration, do the following:

  • Click on the Browse... button to choose the Symbol you want to have representing your VM.

  • In Category select in which group you want to find your VM.

  • Set the Boot priority to CD/DVD-ROM.

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At the HDD tab, change the Disk interface to sata to speed up the boot process.

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At the CD/DVD tab click on Browse... and locate the VyOS image you want to install.

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Note

You probably will want to accept to copy the .iso file to your default image directory when you are asked.

In the Network tab, set the number of adapters to 0, set the Name format to eth{0}, and set the Type to Paravirtualized Network I/O (virtio-net-pci).

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In the Advanced tab, unmark the checkbox Use as a linked base VM and click OK, which will save and close the QEMU VM template configuration window.

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At the general Preferences window, click OK to save and close.

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VyOS installation

  • Create a new project.

  • Drag the newly created VyOS VM into it.

  • Start the VM.

  • Open a console. The console displays the system booting. It prompts for login credentials. You’re now at the VyOS live system.

  • Install VyOS as normal (that is, using the install image command).

  • After successful installation, shut down the VM with the poweroff command.

  • Delete the VM from the GNS3 project.

The VyOS-hda.qcow2 file now contains a working VyOS image and can be used as a template. But it still needs some fixes before we can deploy VyOS in our labs.

VyOS VM configuration

To turn the template into a working VyOS machine, further steps are necessary as outlined below:

General settings tab: Set the boot priority to HDD

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CD/DVD tab: Clear the Image entry field to unmount the installation image.

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Set the number of required network adapters. For example, set it to 4.

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Advanced settings tab: Check the Use as a linked base VM checkbox and click OK to save the changes.

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The VyOS VM is now ready to be deployed.