GNS3 Install: VMware Workstation Pro

Key Takeaways

when you run gns3 on a Windows computer there are two main components that you need to be aware of we have the gns3 GUI application this is an executable application that you installed directly on Windows but we also have the gns3 VM which you run within a hypervisor such as VMware Workstation Pro VMware Workstation Player hyper-v VirtualBox ESXi as an example in this video which I've linked here as well as below I showed you how to install the genius 3 GUI on this laptop so I showed you how to download and install the genus 3 GUI on Windows 10 in this video I'm going to show you how to download and install the genus 3 VM within VMware Workstation Pro this is the recommended way to run the genus 3 VM I've spoken to Jeremy the creator of genus 3 multiple times and he still recommends that you use VMware Workstation Pro if possible when running the genus 3 on a Windows 10 computer there are other options such as VMware Workstation Player which is free but it does have some restrictions in a separate video I'll show you how to get to that working you can also use a virtual box which is free also there are some issues with regards to using a VirtualBox especially on Intel processors you could also use hyper-v again issues using iou and viral images together on hyper-v so it's experimental in this version of Gina 3 or you could use Gina 3 in the cloud or on an ESXi server again if you want to run gns3 locally on your computer the recommended way to do that is to use VMware Workstation pro so download the Gina 3 VM run it within VMware Workstation Pro and integrate that with your genius 3 GUI ok so without further ado I want to show you how to get that installed and set up but before I do let me ask you please if you don't mind subscribe to my youtube channel click on the like button and click on the bell to get notifications when I post a new video [Music] now in this example I'm controlling this Windows laptop from my Mac using VNC it just makes it easier to do the recordings okay so the first thing you need to do is go to genus 3.com click free download either sign up for an account or log in genus 3 is free software but you do need to have an account to download the software now i've previously shown you how to download the Windows executable what we're going to do here however is click on download the genus 3 VM and in this example I'm going to select a VMware Workstation and VMware fusion because I want to run the genus 3 vm within VMware Workstation now this is really important the genus 3 GUI and the genus 3 vm have to be running the same version of software so in this example they are showing that the genus 3 vm is version 2.20 and that's the version that i'm currently downloading so i previously downloaded the genus 3 version 2.2 executable and now i'm downloading the genus 3 vm version 2.2 they have to be the same version for things to work properly so in the genus 3 GUI if you go to file about notice the version 2.2 dot 2 0 that has to match up to the genus 3 vm ok so this is a zip file what I'll do is right click and click extract all and extract of the genus 3 vm as you can see it's an OVA file it's not recognized yet because I still need to download the VMware Workstation so once again there's the folder there's the OVA so in my web browser I'm going to go to vmware.com go to downloads workstation pro at the time of this recording the latest release is version 15 5-0 there's a version for Windows and there's a version for Linux I'm going to go to the Windows version and click go to downloads and then I'm going to click download now you need an account to download the software so if you don't have an account click sign up now to sign up for an account I have an account already so I'm going to log in with my credentials I'm going to agree to the end-user license agreement click accept and click the VMware Workstation is now downloaded it's about 540 Megan sighs okay so that's downloaded so in my downloads directory I'm gonna double click on the VMware Workstation executable and click install the VMware Workstation Pro installation wizard is started okay so in my example it says the installer requires that I restart my system some next click yes to restart the installation ok so my computer has restarted I'm going to go back to the Downloads directory and start the VMware Workstation installation again click yes to allow this app to make changes to my device the VMware installation runs again okay so the setup wizard is displayed I'm going to click Next you need to agree to the License Agreement so so read through the license agreement check this checkbox and click Next now I'm going to basically leave most settings at the defaults so default installation directory click Next I'm not going to check for updates I'm not gonna join the custom experience program click Next I will create shortcuts click Next now before I click install I'll show you something in control panel so in control panel network and internet review Network Status and tasks change adapter settings I currently only have one network adapter the VMware will install additional network adapters that's normal so don't be surprised if you see additional network interfaces or adapters displayed here okay so the VMware installation is going ahead you can see a VMware shortcut is being created it's now installing the virtual network drivers so there you go there's Ethernet 3 VMware virtual Ethernet adapter has been created you can also see additional adapters the VMware installation is now completed I'm going to click finish I can close this down and what I'll be able to do is now start up a VMware Workstation pro now for this installation I don't have a license key this is something that you need to be aware of I can only use the product for 30 days and then I'll have to buy a license if you want a free version of this use VMware Workstation Player not VMware Workstation Pro but in this example I'm going to click continue click yes click finish okay so VMware Workstation pro has been successfully installed what I'm going to do now is go to file open go to my downloads directory go to my VMware Workstation directory and select the genus 3 VM and click open click import this now imports the genus 3 VM into VMware Workstation Pro as you can see here the virtual machine has been successfully imported with the default settings now you don't change the default settings in VMware Workstation Pro you change the settings within the genus 3 GUI so I'm going to shut a VMware Workstation down and start up the gns3 GUI just a warning make sure that you've got the genus 3 GUI shut down before you install VMware Workstation Pro and set up the genus 3 VM okay so genus 3 has now successfully started I'm gonna click cancel at the moment I only have a server running on this local laptop so this is the local service running on Windows what you need to do is go to edit - preferences and under server notice we have a local server that is the server that we're seeing over here what we need to do is select a gns3 VM and enable the genus 3 VM so check this checkbox enable the genus 3 vm notice workstation play is recommended that's what I'm using the name of the VM is genus 3 VM it's picked that up automatically from VMware Workstation if you don't see it click refresh and you should see that in the drop down list this is where you specify the amount of RAM and CPUs the genus 3 VM should use the genus 3 GUI basically makes an API call to VMware and adjusts the size of the RAM and CPUs based on what you've set here so make sure that you set it here and not in VMware Workstation when you close the genus 3 GUI what's going to happen to the genus 3 VM are you going to keep it running suspend it or stop it I'll leave it at the default off stop and click OK what you'll notice here's the genus 3 VM is starting the genus 3 GUI makes an API call to VMware Workstation and basically starts the genus 3 VM automatically and there you go you can see the genus 3 VM is booting up version of operating system is a bunt to 1804 and there you go gns3 vm is configured version is 2.2 dot 0 this is very important notice KVM support available is true that should be set to true if it's not right click on the genus 3 vm and go to settings and under processes we need to check this checkbox virtualize intel vt-x x EPT or AMD v now this requires that v TX is enabled in the bias of your computer so I'm going to show you how to do that now okay so I need to enable nested virtualization of VTX on my laptop so what I'm going to do is shut it down I'm gonna power it on and in this example for this laptop I'm going to hold the f2 key down so you can see here BIOS information what I'm going to do is go to the next menu and the important piece is Intel virtualization technology that's currently enabled there are some other options like hyper threading Intel AES ni vtd but the one that I want is Intel virtualization technology you need that to be enabled to do nested virtualization and VirtualBox or VMware Workstation so I'm going to save those settings and say yes to save the laptop will reboot ok so now I can login and I've been able to login successfully so if you have problems make sure that Intel virtualization technology or VTX intel vt-x is enabled on your laptop but you also need to enable VTX on the vm you can't do that while the VM is running so you'll have to shut it down now that looks good notice back in the gns3 vm everything is green so in this case everything looks good but what I'm going to do just to make sure that everything is working properly is shot at the genus 3 application down or give me down and notice the VMS also shut down so if you have issues again shut the GUI down reboot your computer also make sure that VT X is enabled in the bias of your computer if everything is working properly we should be able to start up the gns3 application and under service summary we should see two servers now the Windows Server as well as the gns3 VM so we can see windows over there and that's actually just kept the genus 3 VM into starting so there's my Windows Server here's my VM which is starting up back in VMware we can see it busy booting up it's a bit slow in this computer because I haven't allocated a lot of RAM and CPU to the VM once again very important you need to make sure that KVM support is available so that all looks good if k vm is not available again make sure that you enable it in the bios of your computer and also shut down genus 3 go into vm a workstation right click on the vm go to settings make sure that of this is enabled so intel vt-x now the amount of RAM and CPU available for your vm depends on your computer the more you can allocate the better basically but again this depends on your computer so in this example I've got a Windows 10 computer it's got 8 gig of ram 64-bit operating system it's an i7 processor so I could allocate more to my Gina 3 vm again you don't do it through VMware Workstation so I'm going to close that down you do that through the gns3 GUI so start up your Gina 3 GUI make sure that everything boots up properly and starts up properly so again my windows server has started gina 3 VM is booting while I'm waiting for that I'm going to click cancel here go to edit preferences Gina 3 VM and what you could do here is for instance allocate more RAM and more CPUs to the Gina 3 VM as soon as I do that to the genus 3 VM will reboot so just to show you the settings at the moment it's got 2 Giga RAM it's got 1 CPU but when I click apply here those changes will be made the genus 3vm is shut down and it's restarted with the new settings so now to rebooting there was a bit quick so back in settings notice the RAM and processors have been adjusted that once again depends on the processing power and memory in your laptop or in your computer if you using viral images as an example you need to allocate enough memory and enough RAM to run a large topology if you want to do that I'll put a link below this video with a calculator that helps you to determine how much RAM and CPU you need depending on the appliances that you want to run ok but back in genus 3 I'm going to create a new blank project and let's say my first vm project click OK now I don't have any cisco riders at the moment I don't have any Cisco switches at the moment what I can do as an example is drag my VP CS device and tell Jenny 3 to run it on the gns3 VM so this is a good test to make sure that things are working properly between Gina 3 and the gns3 VM I'll also drag the built-in switch and run that on the gns3 VM it's recommended that you run topologies on the gns3 VM now in the previous video I showed you how to change symbols I'll just do that quickly here so I'll change these two clients I'll change this to a switch I won't worry too much about making this look pretty I just want to show you that I can get a topology running on the Gianna 3 VM so ad interface labels I'll start that up and I'll open up a console to those devices so these devices are running on the genus 3vm they're not running on Windows okay I'm having an issue with solar paddy it's only showing one computer so I'll shut the solar puttied down and open up console connections again okay so I've got pc-1 pc2 is not showing I'll open up a console manually and there it is some PC one I'll give it an IP address of 10111 slash 24 mosque PC to give it an IP address of 10 1 1 2 slash 24 mask hopefully PC one will be able to ping PC to which it can and PC 2 will hopefully be able to ping PC 1 which it can and that's actually should be PC 1 which it can so network is working I'll save my device configurations closed solar paddy down stop the genus 3 topology and shut a genus 3 down now the last test I'll start genus 3 back up again and make sure that I can restore the topology it's a good idea to wait for the gns3 vm to start before you try and open up your projects so before I try and open this project I'm going to wait for the genus 3 VM to boot up properly so wait until you see something like this and then select my first project ok so project is back start it up open up console connections and PC one should hopefully be able to ping PC to which it can in this example so the putty is having an issue opening this device so I'm going to manually open up a console to that device so there you go I'll ping PC one from PC to okay so there you go I've successfully downloaded to the Gina 3vm I've successfully integrated the journey through GUI with the Gina 3vm I've created a basic topology that's running on the genus 3vm I've tested that it all works I can save the topology I can restore it okay so if you don't mind if you enjoyed this video please would you like it please would just subscribe to my youtube channel and please would you click on the bell to get notifications when I post a new video I'm David bumble wanna wish you all the very best [Music] you [Music]