GNS3 2.1 Install and configuration on Windows 10 (Part 5): Where do I get Cisco IOS images?

A big question! Which IOS images should I be using? Where do I get Cisco IOS images? Links below...

This is one of multiple videos showing you how to install the GNS3 Windows GUI on a Windows 10 PC. This video discusses creating Cisco networks in GNS3.

One of the most common questions asked in the GNS3 forums is “Where do I get Cisco IOS images”?

Important:
Unfortunately due to legal requirements, GNS3 is unable to provide IOS images or any other Cisco images. You will need to provide your own images to use them with GNS3.

Note: Some vendors make their software images freely available, but unfortunately this is not true for Cisco images.

OPTIONS:
Here are some suggestions on ways to get Cisco images:

Cisco website:

Note: A Service Contract is required for downloading of images.

VIRL:
If you don’t have a service contract with Cisco, you can purchase a VIRL license to get access to multiple images that are very useful for GNS3 labs. The cost of this varies from $79.99 to $199.99 per year:

NOTE: You can use VIRL images without license authentication. You can therefore download the VIRL images, integrate them with GNS3 and use them offline if needed.

Physical Cisco devices:
If you own a physical router like a Cisco 3725 router, you can copy the image from the router and import it into GNS3.

[davidbombal]

Transcription:

In the previous video, we configured a basic GNS3 network consisting of 3 VPCS devices and an Ethernet switch.

In this video, I'm going to show you how to create a basic Cisco Network using Cisco iOS images.

One of the best places to go for information about GNS3 is the GNS3 documentation. if you search for iOS images there's a link that explains cisco iOS images for Dynamips.

Now Dynamips is an older way of creating GNS3 networks. This uses what's called the local GNS3 server. So after you've installed the GNS3 Graphical User Interface, you can create GNS3 networks using the local server. That's what we did in the previous video when we created this topology. But now what we're going to do is create a new topology or new project using Cisco IOS images. So I'll create a new project for this GNS3.


At the moment we don't have any installed appliances but under available appliances I have devices such as the Cisco 3725 router. Back in the GNS3 documentation, looking at Cisco IOS images for dynamips, we can see that GNS3 offers multiple ways to emulate Cisco IOS for all the images. GNS3 users and maintains Dynamips which is a hardware emulator dedicated to emulate some Cisco hardware.

So what GNS3 and dynamips are doing here is running an unmodified real Cisco IOS image. In my downloads folder I have this Cisco 3725 IOS image. This is an actual Cisco IOS image that you could run on physical 3725 routers.

Now in the documentation some important points are mentioned. If you want to use 15.X of Cisco IOS, you need a 7200 series image. All other platforms are now end of life and only support IOS 12.4. It's recommended today that you use a Cisco IOSv virl image in GNS3.

In this video I'll show you however how to get a 3725 router image working in GNS3. And in a subsequent video I'll show you how to integrate Cisco IOSv images with a GNS3.

The Dynamips images that are recommended are c3640, c3660, c3725, c3745 and c7200 IOS images. The recommended releases that are most stable are shown in this document.

So as an example for the Cisco 3725 we recommended 3725 router images are these images 12.4 25d mainline image or 12.4.15T14, the technology train.
In my example that's the image that I'm using the minimum amount of RAM for this image is 256 meg of RAM the proposed idle PC value is this. I'll talk about idle PC values in a moment.

So on the documentation page the actual IOS image names are listed and the requirements such as memory for the images. Now probably one of the most commonly asked questions is where do I get images from?

So in the documentation page I've searched for where. Where do I get IOS images? This question comes up all the time. Now again, unfortunately, due to legal requirements and neither I or GNS3 is able to provide Cisco iOS images. You need to provide your own.

Here are some suggestions on ways to get a Cisco IOS images. You can firstly get to them from the Cisco website by clicking on this link. Now if you don't have a service contract with Cisco, you can purchase a VIRL license. This is the recommended way of running cisco images GNS3 and gives you a lot of options.

You get a router image, you get a switching image, you get a firewall image and other images. The cost is now $200 per year. You can get a VIRL by using this link. Atr the time of this recording, there's a 25% discount. So $150 per year. This is a yearly cost.

Another option is to get an iOS image from a physical router. So you would copy the image from the router and load that image into GNS3.

Now, unfortunately, some of the images have been removed from Cisco's website so you won't necessarily find the right iOS images from the Cisco website. Cisco have unfortunately removed some of the recommended images from their website.

So the recommendation is to use a Cisco VIRL. You should purchase a Cisco VIRL image which is both the legal way as well as the best way to run images in GNS3. The recommendation today is to use a Cisco VIRL images. You're going to get better performance and a better user experience by using Cisco VIRL images.

VIRL supports both a Cisco IOSv and IOSv Layer 2. IOSv is a routing image and IOSv Layer 2 is a switching image.

Other images such as a NX-OS and IOS XR are supported as well as CSR 1000V and the ASAv firewall.

So if you want the most features and most reliable platform, it's recommended that you use Cisco VIRLimages with GNS3. But in this video, I'll show you how to import a Cisco Dynamips image into GNS3.

[agbefii]

Keep on doing the good works, you make networking so simple to understand

[dsindun]

This list of videos is the best I have watched.Thank you

[nandhakumarbalaji]

hi everyone for the ethernet switch the console is not opening but pc it opening please help me

[deciogaspar]

Hi David, i'm having trouble with my GNS3 2.2.7 doesnt appear any router . please help me

[mohammadalmaazi]

come on I dont have such money . I need them free