Running a 7750 SR in GNS3

01 Sep 2015

Intro

This is a guide on running Alcatel-Lucent’s 7750 TiMOS operating system on GNS3. I use the built-in GNS3 QEMU, so if you want to use ESX, your results may vary.

Getting it going

1. Download the virtual operating system from the Alcatel-Lucent OLCS portal. It will have vm in the title and description. Or bug your Sales Engineer. :)
2. Unzip the downloaded file. In 13.0.R4, there are 2 files: sros-vm.ova and sros-vm.qcow2
3. In GNS3, go to Edit -> Preferences
4. Click on QEMU VMs
5. Click on New. A wizard should appear.
6. The type can be left as default.
7. The name can be anything you’d like. I went with vSROS
8. The QEMU binary information can be left alone. Just click next
9. The Disk image should be the .qcow2 file that you downloaded earlier
10. Click on Finish

Next Steps

Once you know your virtual 7750 will boot up, you can start adding interfaces. The first interface (eth0) is connected to CSM-A for management purposes. Any interfaces you add after that follow the port numbers. So eth0 is for management, eth1 is for port 1/1/1, eth2 for port 1/1/2, and so on. The SRs only have 6 usuable ports (1 management, 5 ethernet).

You can then configure and build your 7750 and start playing with all the features.

Conclusion

I have to say, the router boots up fast. Seemingly faster than their physical counterparts.

The one somewhat frustrating part with the virtual image is that you only get to use one card and one mda. In the current version, you can only have 5 ethernet ports in card 1 mda 1. It would be nice to have the option to get more than 5 ethernet ports.

The one thing I wish is that Alcatel-Lucent would release a virtual image for the 7705. The environment I work in is primarily 7705s so it would be nice to have a virtual 7705 for testing and ensuring that my generated configs will work. I don’t work on the 7750s much, so I would prefer to not know some of the additional functionality it has so that when I’m labbing something up, I don’t try and implement something that the 7705 can’t handle. I would also find being able to configure RS232, TDM, bridging, E&M in a virtual environment helpful.

I hope that helps you get going with running an Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR in GNS3.