Home lab for CCNP and beyond?

V

Virai

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Oct 31, 2005
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Hey guys,

I'm looking to build a lab to learn and get more experience with. I've got my CCNA and CCNP and am just looking to build a lab to keep my skills up and have fun with. I have no plans of getting my CCIE, but delving into some of the CCIE topics would be interesting.

The lab that I have been using for the last 2 years is my school lab, and now that I've graduated I no longer have access to it. They had very new equipment in the lab, so I'm used to the new 12.2-12.4 IOS. There was mainly 3500 and 3700 series switches and 2800 series routers for the last year in there.

I know I can't afford that kind of equipment, or even close. I need a little help picking out some routers and switches for my home lab that will do me good. I would like to spend under $200 for each unit (maybe 3 routers and 2 switches right now). Does anyone have similar equipment in their home lab that is doing well for them?

I've heard a lot of things like "Don't go for the 2500 series" and "Make sure you get 64/16 in your routers for the latest IOS's", but besides these does anyone have some specific advise on what I should be looking for? Thanks so much for any help.

Regards,
Jerry
 
emulators are great and all, but sometimes they just can't substitute for the real thing. however, i typically work with the higher end of the cisco equipment, so i'm not too familiar with the cheap things that you or i would buy for our own use. i would just search ebay or something. look for equipment that is starting to get phased out, so it should be cheaper. i know the 3550 switches recently became end of software support, but work just fine for lab stuff. i think there are new and old 2900 series switches. i think the older ones were layer 2 only, but should work fine if you only need it to do switching functions. if you know someone from your school, you might be able to get a deal through them if they are getting rid of any old equipment.

after i typed all that, i just did a quick ebay search on the 3550 switches and the 7140 routers. both are pretty much end of life, but they are still expensive. emulators may be your best bet unless you can find a huge discount from somewhere.
 
A lot of people use Dynamips. It's a simulator that boots real Cisco IOS images. It's to Cisco equipment to what VMWare is to PCs.
 
Hmm... Okay, I guess my budget is too low then, huh? Well I will look into Dynamips and give it a shot. I still would like to start building my lab though, so can anyone give me some advice on a good price range for the equipment that I want/need, since I'm too low? Thank you.

Regards,
Jerry
 
I just recently started down this path with the assistance from a friend of mine who is a ceritified CCIE. I was told to go the simulator route but wanted my own equipment for practical on-hands work. The source for most of my equipment was E-bay, if you know where to look you can find and get some really great deals. My current configuration is as follows:

1 x Cisco 2509 Acess Server
2 x Cisco Catalyst WS-C3550-24-SMI 24 Port Switches
1 x Cisco 2900XL Catalyst Switch
2 x Cisco 2620 Routers

All this equipment is racked in a nice 12U Skeletek Rack which was also purchased from Ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/SKELETEK-Rack-M...ryZ64064QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

So far I have no problems with this set-up and will upgrade as necessary when funds become available. I still have to upgrade both memory and flash memory on both the routers from 32/8 to 64/16.
 
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SiNGeD said:
I just recently started down this path with the assistance from a friend of mine who is a ceritified CCIE. I was told to go the simulator route but wanted my own equipment for practical on-hands work. The source for most of my equipment was E-bay, if you know where to look you can find and get some really great deals. My current configuration is as follows:

1 x Cisco 2509 Acess Server
2 x Cisco Catalyst WS-C3550-24-SMI 24 Port Switches
1 x Cisco 2900XL Catalyst Switch
2 x Cisco 2620 Routers

All this equipment is racked in a nice 12U Skeletek Rack which was also purchased from Ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/SKELETEK-Rack-M...ryZ64064QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

So far I have no problems with this set-up and will upgrade as necessary when funds become available. I still have to upgrade both memory and flash memory on both the routers from 32/8 to 64/16.
Click to expand...

Thanks SiNGeD, you sound like you're trying to go down the same "home-lab" path as me and sounds very similar to something that I would like to start off with. How long did it take you to acquire it all off ebay, and approximately how much was it including the rack? I was looking at Dynamips but it looks like you can only simulate routers with it, no switches. Doesn't really seem like something I'm interested in. :(
 
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Wow!! I just got Dynamips and Dynagen up and running and all I can say is HOLY SHIT. This is an absolutely awesome piece of software, I've got a full-scale lab set up right now and it took me about 15 minutes. I'm kind of disappointed that it doesn't support switch IOS's though... with that said, here's a couple questions:

1) Can I run Dynamips on two computers that are on my network and have them talk to each other? ie. One computer is running Dynamips with 2 routers set up, and another computer is running Dynamips with 2 other routers. Are all the routers able to communicate with each other?

2) Is there any way that I can set up something to do some switching? Either an IOS or an actual switch (ie. 2950)?

3) What's the maximum number of routers someone should be emulating with a Core 2 Duo E6750 and 2 gigs of ram? Also, what is the lowest amount of RAM that should be allocated to one router? I read somewhere 96MB but I'm not sure.

Thank you!
 
To answer your question I was able to put my lab together in approximately 3 weeks. Glad to hear you had some success with Dynamips and Dynagen. I'll have to take a look at this software when I get a chance.
 
Let me first start by saying that Dynamips can fully replace all routers for the CCIE lab, there is 100% no benefit in buying real equipment. If you are building a CCIE lab, Dynamips + 2x 3550 and you are set. Period:)

Berky, I work with pretty much top of the line Cisco gear daily(4500s, 6500s, 4900s, 3750s, 3500's 12000s, 7200s, ISR's, etc) and there is NO reason to NOT use an emulated environment for a lab, shit.... VMware and Cisco are working hand in hand on developing much more robust networking for ESX so eventually everything will be virtualized.

Onto my story, I started studying for my BSCI with a real lab, 4x3640's 1x 3620, a few L2 switches. I got so fed up with constantly changing cables to simulate different topologies, I had to start using Dynamips full time. Before this I hated it, the idlepc function wasn't working correctly so it basically sucked(ive been following the development since it was alpha). Let me tell you, I did over 120 labs with dynamips utilizing different topologies so quickly, you can't beat it for labbing.

jebdawg said:
Wow!! I just got Dynamips and Dynagen up and running and all I can say is HOLY SHIT. This is an absolutely awesome piece of software, I've got a full-scale lab set up right now and it took me about 15 minutes. I'm kind of disappointed that it doesn't support switch IOS's though... with that said, here's a couple questions:

1) Can I run Dynamips on two computers that are on my network and have them talk to each other? ie. One computer is running Dynamips with 2 routers set up, and another computer is running Dynamips with 2 other routers. Are all the routers able to communicate with each other?

2) Is there any way that I can set up something to do some switching? Either an IOS or an actual switch (ie. 2950)?

3) What's the maximum number of routers someone should be emulating with a Core 2 Duo E6750 and 2 gigs of ram? Also, what is the lowest amount of RAM that should be allocated to one router? I read somewhere 96MB but I'm not sure.

Thank you!
Click to expand...

1) yes, you can bind virtualized interfaces on routers to your physical interfaces on your computers. You can even trunk out to a switch and have each router on a different switch port utilizing tagging.

2) The only option we have here is to use the NM-16ESW. Unfort. the dynamips developer is unable to emulate the ASICS which are used for the hardware based L3 packet switching. It may be developed in the future, I wouldn't hold my breath though.

3) Dynamips stores router NMRAM on your local disk not your RAM, I prefer it this way but Im almost positive that you can change it. My dynamips setup is as follows

2x VCPU @ 1.55GHZ( I have a dual quad core xeon box)
768Mb ram
20Gig hdd

I have had 22 or so routers between 3 dynamips instances running before in a BGP lab. It ran kinda slow but thats expected.

Hope this helps.

ahhhh, forgot about one thing.... Check out PEMU while you're at it.
http://gdynagen.sourceforge.net/pemuwrapper/index.php
^ everyone, you're welcome.
 
jebdawg said:
Wow!! I just got Dynamips and Dynagen up and running and all I can say is HOLY SHIT. This is an absolutely awesome piece of software, I've got a full-scale lab set up right now and it took me about 15 minutes. I'm kind of disappointed that it doesn't support switch IOS's though... with that said, here's a couple questions:

1) Can I run Dynamips on two computers that are on my network and have them talk to each other? ie. One computer is running Dynamips with 2 routers set up, and another computer is running Dynamips with 2 other routers. Are all the routers able to communicate with each other?
Click to expand...

Yeah, Dynamips has a bit of a learning curve, but once you grasp the idea, it's really quite simple to quickly set up a complete lab. I recommend it for most anyone who's learning Cisco.

As for your question: Yes, you can run Dynamips on multiple machines to run routers that are on the same network. There's a simpler way than binding to a physical interface too... check out this link: http://7200emu.hacki.at/viewtopic.php?t=3847.

Basically, you specify the IP and port of both Dynamips servers in the .net file. When you execute the net file, the virtual routers are created on the appropriate machine.

Also, browse around the forum on my link above... it seems to be the place for all things Dynamips.
 
I have a pc P4 512 mb ram etc
can i use that to run cisco 2600 series ios with dynamips?
 
secure.boy said:
I have a pc P4 512 mb ram etc
can i use that to run cisco 2600 series ios with dynamips?
Click to expand...

Sure, you can probably run at least 5 routers on those specs, perhaps more.

werd nybbles, I forgot to post a link to the hacki forums.. it is a great resource. :D
 
xphil3 said:
Sure, you can probably run at least 5 routers on those specs, perhaps more.

werd nybbles, I forgot to post a link to the hacki forums.. it is a great resource. :D
Click to expand...

Please tell me more info and where can i get IOS to download?
 
I did a quick search of the hacki.at site and have not found an answer yet. I have a question about the program you mentioned. Can it interface with real Cisco equipment? I am currently studying for the CCNA and have a 1912 switch, a 2610 (with the 4 port serial slot), and a 2514. I was considering buying one more cheap router when I came across tis thread. Might this program interact with the equipment I already have?

Also, I got my equipment from Ciscokits. Not the cheapest in the world by any means. But the service and extras made me go back for a second order.
 
secure.boy said:
Please tell me more info and where can i get IOS to download?
Click to expand...

You need a Cisco support contract, else it's considered warez.

Dynamips is great. I can't wait for the IOS hypervisor when it comes to VMWare.

Boson Netsim is good too, for a sim. It comes with CCNA and CCNP labs.
 
xphil3 said:
Berky, I work with pretty much top of the line Cisco gear daily(4500s, 6500s, 4900s, 3750s, 3500's 12000s, 7200s, ISR's, etc) and there is NO reason to NOT use an emulated environment for a lab, shit.... VMware and Cisco are working hand in hand on developing much more robust networking for ESX so eventually everything will be virtualized.
Click to expand...

first let me say that for probably 95% of what people want to do, yes, you are correct.

however, there are always limitations and things that you need real hardware to test.

for example, upgrading code on a lab device to test it before you deploy it in a production environment. normally, you can't risk running into emulator bugs while testing for production stuff.

also, what about non-ethernet interfaces? i have not used dynamips yet, so please excuse my ignorance here. does the emulation software support fiber interfaces for atm? can you even buy atm or serial nics to put in a pc so that it can try to emulate it?

thats all i was really trying to say before, but all in all, i do agree with you for most cases.

do the 12000's differ much from the others? i've never been on those before.
 
s0ldier93 said:
I did a quick search of the hacki.at site and have not found an answer yet. I have a question about the program you mentioned. Can it interface with real Cisco equipment? I am currently studying for the CCNA and have a 1912 switch, a 2610 (with the 4 port serial slot), and a 2514. I was considering buying one more cheap router when I came across tis thread. Might this program interact with the equipment I already have?

Also, I got my equipment from Ciscokits. Not the cheapest in the world by any means. But the service and extras made me go back for a second order.
Click to expand...

I also got all my equipment from Bob at Ciscokits, he lives like 30min away from me. Getting to your question, yes you can interface dynamips with real cisco gear. You can do this through the "dumb" switch in the config file or using the 16ESW and running a virtualize trunk to a real switch binding that specific virtual interface with your physical NIC. Follow? If not, let me know and we can chat on AIM.

Berky,

I totally hear what you're saying about staging and testing before deploying and agree. Dynmips does support serial, ethernet, ATM, and a few other types of interfaces. SInce all of these interfaces are virtualized its not like you need the physical hardware to use them, but if you do want to trunk out to a physical network Im pretty sure that your only option is ethernet.

The only way that the 12000's differ from the others is bascially size wise, unless they are on IOX which I haven't used at all yet. Im going to be working for Cisco in a few months so Ill let you know then :) Ill also let you know how it is using a CRS-1's
 
xphil3 said:
I also got all my equipment from Bob at Ciscokits, he lives like 30min away from me. Getting to your question, yes you can interface dynamips with real cisco gear. You can do this through the "dumb" switch in the config file or using the 16ESW and running a virtualize trunk to a real switch binding that specific virtual interface with your physical NIC. Follow? If not, let me know and we can chat on AIM.
Click to expand...

Uummm. . . I think I can get as far as making the program work. . . . . I'll PM you to set up an AIM after that.
 
For anyone having trouble setting Dynamips up, here is a good tutorial that will get you started. It helped me get up and running, and now I can set up some pretty complex labs in no time.

http://www.blindhog.net/cisco-router-emulation-software-dynamips-video-tutorial/

Here is also something very cool, this is a sample lab of what can be done with Dynamips. It's a sample CCIE lab and goes to show just how well Dynamips works.

http://www.ccietrack.com/Free/Articles/Dynamips-for-DOiT-Workbook/

Hope this helps!
 
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