RouterOS Virtual Labs

daras · October 9, 2015, 12:27pm

i am running OSX Lion that is the only version i can get in my MAC

Anyway its working but still getting the following message when i am trying to connect to console

127.0.0.1:2049 network error:connection refused

But if select to reload the router i am able to login to Mikrotik console

Strange things

daras · October 10, 2015, 9:24am

Hi, Normis

How can we emulate WAN connections in GNS3 i mean if i connect another Router in the cloud it will get another ip address in the subnet 192.168.137.0 but i want to get an ip address on another subnet say 192.168.135.0 is this possible ?

Thanks

daras · October 23, 2015, 12:09pm

Hi,

How can we configure a point-to-point link (not wireless) ?

I think Cisco does the same with ppp connections

daras · October 23, 2015, 1:43pm

kasparskr:

We recently released a test version of our upcoming product Cloud Hosted Router (CHR) - a virtual RouterOS instance for the x86_64 architecture. The test version we currently offer has 1mbps limit per interface (in future we will offer unlimited speed with a paid subscription). Otherwise, it’s a fully functional RouterOS.

RouterOS Virtual Labs can be used in various scenarios, for example, to try out configuration before deploying it in production, when preparing for MikroTik Certification test or using CHR as a router for virtual servers, just to name a few.

Following are basic instructions to get started on creating RouterOS Virtual Labs using GNS3 (Graphical Network Simulator) tool on Windows desktop machine, Windows 8.1 to be specific but it should be similar on other Windows versions as well, just make sure it is 64bit version.

NOTE. GNS3 can be run also on Linux and Mac machines.

As of this writing (August 2015) the newest version of GNS3 is v1.3.9, it can be obtained here - https://github.com/GNS3/gns3-gui/releases/tag/v1.3.9 (or just head to http://www.gns3.com). As a hypervisor GNS3 can use either VirtualBox or Qemu. For running CHR, we suggest Qemu. It is already bundled with GNS3 installation. Currently, the newest version of Qemu for Windows is v2.4.0, but with GNS3 included is v2.2.0. If you want the newest, you can download it from http://qemu.weilnetz.de/w64/ and install separately. During installation, GNS3 will check for existing Qemu installation on your computer and will use that if true. In this guide, we will use separately installed Qemu.

Install Qemu (using default settings)

Install GNS3 (GNS3-1.3.9-all-in-one.exe) and uncheck Qemu
Setup will download additional installation files as necessary.

NOTE. SolarWinds Response tool reports that computer name can only contain ‘a-z’, ‘A-Z’, ‘0-9’, ‘.’ and ‘-’ as characters. Underscore ‘_’ is not valid and if you want to use this tool computer name will have to be changed.

For Virtual RouterOS instances to have access to the Internet (or at least Windows host machine) a loopback interface has to be created and Internet Connection Sharing enabled.

To do so, execute command: ‘hdwwiz.exe’ (as Administrator) - Add Hardware Wizard will open.

Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (Advanced) → Network Adapters → Microsoft → Microsoft Loopback adapter. If there is no such choice Microsoft KM-TEST Loopback Adapter should be chosen.
Open ‘Control Panel → Network and Sharing center → Change adapter settings’. There will be a new network adapter and it should have a name ‘Ethernet 2’ (or some other number if there are more ethernet devices on the computer). For the sake of recognizability, we suggest renaming the interface to ‘Loopback’ or some other apparent name.

Next, enable Internet Connection Sharing, select the network interface which is used to connect your computer to the network (WiFi or wired) and open Properties → Sharing. Enable ‘Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection’ and select ‘Loopback’ as Home Network Connection:
Windows will automatically assign IP 192.168.137.1 to that interface and enable DHCP server on it.
It is suggested to reboot the computer at this point!

Download newest CHR image (.img file) here - http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/cloud-hosted-router/89979/1

Open GNS3. To make it easier to move GNS3 projects between various computers, it is suggested to change GNS3 Paths (My projects, My binary images) to a universal folder, e.g. C:\GNS3. By default, it is C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\GNS3... It can be changed in Edit → Preferences

Create RouterOS template: Edit → Preferences → Qemu VM’s → New → Type: Default → Choose a name → Choose amount of RAM to allocate for one RouterOS instance: 64MB is suggested → Chose disk image that was downloaded in step 4. Change network adapters to desired amount, e.g. 4
Now RouterOS template is available from Browse Routers side panel.

GNS3 has been set up for creating your RouterOS Virtual Lab. Drag and Drop RouterOS template on the main screen as many times as you need virtual routers. Connect them with links. To have access to the host computer’s Loopback interface, add ‘Cloud’ instance and configure its Ethernet to use that interface.
Connect it to the RouterOS instance via Switch. As there already is a DHCP server on Windows Loopback interface, IP address on RouterOS can be obtained automatically, just configure
/ip dhcp-client
accordingly.

Boot routers one by one: right clicking on each and choosing Start. Or click “play” icon on top to start all instances at once. Double-clicking with a mouse on a running instance will open a terminal to its console.

To manage RouterOS instances via Winbox from Windows machine, enable RoMON on all routers:
/tool romon set enabled=yes
and connect using RoMON to the RouterOS instance which is directly connected to Loopback interface. Read more about RoMON on our wiki - http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:RoMON
To better distinguish routers from each other, rename each to have a different name, e.g.
/system identity set name=ROS_1
Here’s a simple 4 router setup connected to the Internet via Loopback interface. Static routing was configured and each of them was able to connect to the internet via the CHR631-1 router.

GNS3 includes VPCS (Virtual PC Simulator) - a simple network testing tool which has some essential commands like traceroute, ping, arp built in. It even has DHCP client. It can be connected to router or switch as necessary. If full fledged OS is needed, Qemu can run it too. One thing to note - Qemu is rather slow in running generic Linux LiveCD’s. VirtualBox is a better choice. As GNS3 supports both Qemu and VirtualBox, you can combine instances using both of these hypervisors.

GNS3 installation has Wireshark bundled with it. Wireshark is a powerful network packet analyzer which can be used to capture traffic on an interface. To see traffic on a link in GNS3, right-click on it and chose ‘Start capture’. Read more about Wireshark features here - https://www.wireshark.org/about.html

GNS3 stores all project files under one folder which is movable to another computer. RouterOS template image file (.img) should also be copied together with the project itself and placed into ‘GNS3/images’ folder on target machine.

Qemu stores images in qcow2 (copy-on-write) format. These images can be run separately from GNS3 if needed. For example, you could make a multiple virtual lab with multiple routers and afterwards deploy the same images in production. If in production environment different hypervisor is used, qcow2 image can be converted to various formats using ‘qemu-img convert’ command. See more - http://docs.openstack.org/image-guide/content/ch_converting.html

We’re just scratching the surface here on what can be done with CHR using GNS3, the rest is up to you. We would love to see your virtual lab setups, please post screenshots in this thread.

Additional notes:

When using Windows 8, if there are problems with pinging Loopback interface from the router or VPCS, try reinstalling Winpcap and run it using compatibility mode for Windows 7.

If there are problems with pinging Loopback interface from the router or VPCS, check that your antivirus and/or firewall is not blocking traffic from virtual RouterOS instances to the host machine.

When using Qemu as a hypervisor, it is possible to pass additional parameters using ‘options’ field in Qemu VM Configuration → Advanced Settings. For available Qemu parameters see - http://wiki.qemu.org/download/qemu-doc.html

Hi,

How are you connecting the routers together using the link button only ?

I did the same thing i added also static routes from one router to the other and i cannot ping each other

BartoszP · October 23, 2015, 2:30pm

I “like” posts with quotation beeing at 99% level and comment with several words.

daras · October 27, 2015, 12:13pm

Hi, Normis

I 've enabled romon in all the routers like in your diagram with the 4 routers but i can only use winbox only to the one which is connected to the cloud.

Do i 've to enable something else for winbox ?

Thanks

KingBangBoom · December 2, 2015, 10:10am

Hello,

is there a limit in how much RAM and how many CPUs i can use for my Virtual Mikrotik (x86) ROS 6.33?
Are there any further Hardware limitations ?

sincerely
KBB

Provesi · December 2, 2015, 1:20pm

Hi Daras,

Did you set the roMON ports? You can use the following command to see your interfaces: /romon port print

For more information you can read http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:RoMON

I hope that is usefull.

daras · December 16, 2015, 2:33pm

Hi, normis

I want to simulate a VPN configuration with 2 routers connected through the internet and provide a LAN-to-LAN implementation using different types of VPN’s such as L2TP, P2TP iPSEC.

Like in the diagram below

LAN1—|---------router 1----------(INTERNET CLOUD)-----------router 2----------|-----LAN2

Is this possible by adding 2 loopback interfaces in the cloud ?

Thanks

ZeroByte · December 16, 2015, 2:37pm

You don’t need to use the Internet cloud - just connect router 1 and router 2 together, or else place a 3rd router in the middle and name it Internet. Make router 1 and router 2’s default gateways point to router 1.

If you want to connect the same cloud to multiple devices, use a virtual switch between your cloud object and your routers.

BartoszP · December 16, 2015, 3:11pm

Remember not to leave all three routers with default configuration. Change them to numbers wich will be easy to “spy”.
For tests set for the first router LAN @ subnet 172.16.x.x LAN, for the second 10.y.y.y subnet and the third (the “Internet” one) could be left @ 192.168.88.0/24 subnet. It will be easy then to see packet flow and set rules.

mehvish · December 17, 2015, 7:38am

hi..,
as just routers provides routes to the data packet in the network layer with the help of IP addresses similarly Diseases Attacks also helps in routing the visual scenario.

–
thanx n regards

daras · December 18, 2015, 7:35am

Hi,

I did an upgrade to GNS version 1.3.13 and when i connect a Virtual PC to switch and try to connect via console
i am getting the following error

"executing the startup file PC1> goodby. The message says “network error: Software caused connection abort” restart in 5 sec.

Has anyone encounterd this problem ?

daras · December 18, 2015, 9:19am

for anyone had this issue the following solution worked for me

I rename the file cygwin1.dll to cygwin1.dll.old in the folder C:\Program Files\GNS3\dynamips.

Then I performed a copy from cygwin1.dll who is in folder C:\Program Files\GNS3\vpcs toward the folder the folder C:\Program Files\GNS3\dynamips.

Till now everything works fine

daras · December 19, 2015, 2:23pm

Did you 've any problem with the 6.34rc.img because i cannot get an ip address using the ip dhcp-client. ?

boen_robot · January 13, 2016, 11:10pm

Hi. I just wanted to let everyone know that GNS 1.4.0 was released yesterday, and it now supports adding its own “appliances” (i.e. VMs, preconfigured for GNS3).

There’s also a MikroTik CHR appliance (contributed by yours truly).

After installing GNS3 and Qemu, download and double click the .gns3a file, and at the version selection, click on the version you want, and click download to get the image (directly from MikroTik’s servers). The rest is just following the instructions.

If you’re using GNS3 on Windows with a local server, then prior to double clicking the appliance file, you’ll need to enable experimental features from “Edit > Preferences > General > Miscellaneous > Enable experimental features (Dangerous, require restart)”, click “Apply”, and close GNS3.

spippan · January 14, 2016, 4:56pm

greetings

i have set up GNS3 1.3.9 on win10x64 pro
i have QEMU 2.2.0
i have also set up a Loopback interface

my GNS3 setup:
→ 1x Cloud (has nio_gen_eth:Loopback as Ethernet interf.)
–>Switch (SW1) (<-- here is the problem!! i guess) (*)
—>RouterOS-vRouter (monolith)

i cannot connect eth1 from virtual rOS router to the Cloud interface (Loopback interface in windows)
in the console i get the error:
Server error from 127.0.0.1:8000: SW1: unable to create generic ethernet NIO
if i add the Host’s Ethernet main interface to the “Cloud” (which shares its connection to the windows-loopback interface) it shows up as “nio_gen_eth:Ethernet”
to THIS new port i am then able to connect switchport 1 or 2 or X of SW1

on the “monolith” rOS vRouter i configured a dhcp-client on ether1 (ether1-gateway) but it gets no lease.

TomosRider · January 15, 2016, 7:52am

Hello. This is a common bug that i had once, too.
First, try to disable Windows firewall. Delete your cloud instance, restart GNS3 and then create cloud instance again. This worked for me. Cheers!

DeamonMV · January 21, 2016, 9:06pm

Hi all.
I have problem with launch mikrotik in gns.
in console I cant get a proposals to enter of credentials.
The QEMU process have 50% of CPU.
http://s004.radikal.ru/i207/1601/fd/24961216648e.jpg

I have windows 10 pro x64
GNS 1.3.9 x64
QEMU 2.5.0 x64

and interestingly, once I got access to the console

What it can be?
UDP: After 10Min in console have see a proposal to enter login. but process of QEMU CPU ~35%.
http://s009.radikal.ru/i307/1601/0b/a092b2f09f0b.jpg

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