Table of contents
0. Foreword
Due to work needs, I want to test SD-WAN, but I don't have a test environment or test equipment at hand. Suddenly thought of why not use the simulator test. After some operations, I seem to have discovered a new continent. Unexpectedly, the world of the simulator has undergone earth-shaking changes. It's really "one day of learning one day's work, one day of not learning ten days of empty space".
1. Introduction to PNETLab
The full name of PNETLab in English is Packet Network Emulator Tool Lab, which literally translates into Chinese as Packet Network Emulator Tool Lab. In fact, it is an emulator similar to Huawei ENSP and Cisco EVE, which includes PNETLab Box and PNETLab store.
PNETLab Box (offline and online modes) is a virtual machine. It installs on the local machine where Lab will run, so you don't have to worry about Lab speed.
PNETLab Store is a web platform with hundreds of free laboratories in the fields of network, database, system, etc. . . All you need to do is get the Lab and learn (IOS, Docker are included in the lab when downloading from PNETLab)
Friends who have used emulators know that EVE, GNS3 or PT are generally used for Cisco-related experiments; ENSP is generally used for Huawei, but recently ENSP has not been updated and is no longer maintained, but it can still be used. , there should be a more dazzling Huawei simulator born in the later period, which is currently under development; HCL is generally used to do H3C experiments.
Well, the PNETLab introduced today is actually similar to EVE. It needs to be installed in a virtual machine. The loading process is exactly the same as EVE. How to load EVE is how to load this PNET.
//The above content is excerpted from 51CTO blogger wljslmz
2. Download and install
PNETLab官网：PNETLab : Lab is Simple
https://pnetlab.com/
2.1 download
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BbOL7JEQbChymPeux9JGrHZpLsQyCpPQ/view?usp=sharingThe download address is blocked, and you need to surf the Internet scientifically.
Get the ova file after downloading.
2.2 import
Due to the use of a virtual environment, VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation needs to be installed in advance.
I use VMWare Workstation, click menu - file - open, browse to the ova file, click open.
Modify the appropriate name and path, and click Import.
After importing, edit and modify the appropriate cpu and memory usage. There are 2 pits here.
The first pit: network adapter mode, the default first network card is NAT, and the second network card is bridge mode. I don't want to use the default configuration. As a result, I can't enter the system after changing it, but it can start normally after changing it back. So the default mode of the network card cannot be changed.
The second pit: Since many devices need to be virtualized in the virtual machine, the virtual machine CPU needs to open the virtualization engine.
When I check it, it starts to report an error.
VMware Workstation does not support virtualization performance counters on this host. For more details, see VMware Knowledge Base Article 81623 at https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/81623.
Module 'VPMC' failed to start. Failed to start virtual machine.
This error was seen when I was running other virtual machines on my laptop. Since I did other tests that did not involve virtual machine nesting, it has not been resolved.
I saw from the personal notebook BIOS that virtualization is turned on, and the virtualization settings such as Hyper-V of the operating system are also turned off.
Finally, I saw a solution on the Internet. It turns out that after a certain update of Win11, the kernel isolation will be turned on. After the kernel isolation is turned on, Hyper-v will be started by default. This conflicts with VMWare, so it needs to be turned off.
Search for kernel isolation in the settings, you can find it, close it and restart it.
The third pitfall: It is recommended that the memory of the virtual machine for beginners can be set smaller, so that it will not take up too much space. At the same time, it is recommended to turn off the 3D acceleration of the virtual machine.
2.3 start
After the above settings are completed, the virtual machine can be started.
The logo design of the startup interface is not bad.
After starting, you can see the login address. It is recommended not to log in through the web, but use root/pnet to log in at the console. The first login requires some configuration to be initialized.
This process needs to change the password, set the host name, set the IP, set the NTP, set the proxy, etc., or keep the default.
Reboot after setup is complete.
After restarting, you can log in to see the system information.
2.4 Registration and Login
When you log into PNETLab for the first time, you will get the splash screen. You have two options: offline mode and online mode.
online mode
- Internet required to work
- Registration is required.
- Support all functions of PNETLab
- You can download and use all labs in store
- You can share or sell labs to shops
- Limit 10 accounts (upgradeable)
Offline mode:
- Does not require internet to work
- No registration is required. Default login account: admin/pnet
- Support all functions of PNETLab
- You can only download and use Open Labs (labs with "Open" at the top) in the store
- You cannot share or sell labs to stores
- Limited to 10 accounts (upgrade possible, but requires internet)
The above content comes from official documents. If there is no network and do not use the online laboratory experiment, the offline mode can be used. Add and design experiments yourself in offline mode. In the offline mode, you can also download the experiment with the word OPEN. At this time, you also need to register a website account. Instead of this, it is better to use the online mode.
3. Sinicization
Although my English level is not bad for English software and documents, I also recommend that you use the English interface, but in view of this function, I will introduce it.
Use the ssh tool to copy the downloaded Chinese package to the /opt/unetlab/html/language/China directory.
Set the language in the web interface
After the setting is complete, the interface changes to Chinese.
4. Mirror image
When using the offline version to design experiments, you will find that you cannot add devices other than PCs. After downloading experiments from the online laboratory, you will find that many devices stop immediately after starting.
Because: Note: PNETLab no longer provides IOS, so you can't see any dependent packages. All nodes in the lab will fail to start.
The latest official instructions no longer provide IOS mirroring, and a link given by the official: i-share.top
This site is probably discontinued.
Mirroring can only be done in other ways.
I found one myself: LabHub A repository of network emulator images for testing and simulation. https://labhub.eu.org/zh-CN/
There are basically 3 types of images, the first is dynamips, choose to download the corresponding type of image and upload it to the corresponding directory through the tool; the second is IOL, the same is true, it is said on the Internet that it needs to be repaired through system settings, and I am using it No problems were found; the third type is qemu, where you will find many devices of different manufacturers and brands, and some of them are not automatically found when they are uploaded to the corresponding directory during use.
Having said so much, I forgot to mention the mirror copy location. The downloaded image is copied to the corresponding directory through scp, ssh and other tools.
There are three folders under /opt/unetlab/addons, and dynamips, iol, and qemu correspond to three types of images.
This is the image I imported.
It is not included in the pnet experiment, probably because of copyright issues, but there are so many other types of docker images, basically you can do any type of experiment you want.
You can download the experiments in the lab. Although there is no device image in the experiment, the docker image of the terminal will be downloaded automatically for future use.
For example, I downloaded a NAT experiment, and there are zabbix, syslog, TFTP, nagios and other types of services, which can be used by myself in the future.
Another way is to make a qemu image by yourself and follow the official instructions. I have no practice or test.
5. Download experiment
After the platform is installed, you can start the experiment. The first is to design the experiment yourself, and the second is to download the experiment from the store.
Click to download the experiment and enter the PNETLab store. You can see different types of experiments at different levels.
Select an experiment and click Download.
After a short download time, you can see that the download is successful, click to enter the experiment.
Select the corresponding experiment in the workspace to enter the experiment.
Some devices may have mirror errors and cannot be started. You can edit and select the corresponding mirror.
The following can be a pleasant experiment.
6. Console
The system supports two console types: HTML console and default console. With HTML Console you can console or remote to all devices without any external packages.
HTML is set as the default when you log in, but you can switch to the default console by clicking HTML Console on the menu bar.
5.1, HTML console
When the device starts up, you can use the HTML console by clicking on the device. Each device will open a new tab in the terminal window.
To paste into the HTML console, you can press Shift + Ctrl + Alt, then paste into the text box;
To upload files to the HTML console host, you can press Shift + Ctrl + Alt, and then upload the files to the shared folder. Then you can find the file in the path: thinclient_drives/GUACD/download.
5.2, default console
To use the default console, you need to install some external packages below.
https://mega.nz/#!V50gUCQY!ysvjljJrulRT0De96BhIXCEnP2uDkE-zWr7Kyyml3ds
This download address requires scientific Internet access.
It is still recommended to use the HTML console.
7. Summary
To be honest, the official slogan: Lab is Simple, the actual test is not difficult to use, but the difficulty is to use it flexibly, apply what you have learned, and let this simulator play the best role in your work.