Connect to GNS3 VM

February 1, 2020 | 4 minute read
Catalin Andrei
Master Principal Cloud Architect
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In the previous article i created a GNS3 VM on OCI. Further i would like to connect to this VM and use it in order to visualize a network appliance.

In order to connect to the VM, I need the GNS3 software installed locally on the laptop. The software is free, however, I need to create an account. I am using a Windows 10 laptop and what i will capture further is on this OS.

Download GNS3 from: https://www.gns3.com/software/download

After the installation, configure the client to use a remote server:

Put the public IP address of the GNS3 VM from OCI.

After the setup, the client will look like this:

Now, the virtualization environment is ready to be used.

Next, i will upload a Cisco ASAv into the GNS3. For this i need to download the ASAv firmware. For this, a valid CSO account with the appropriate rights for download is needed.

The article will not cover this part, so in order to move further, you will need the ASAv firmware.

I connected to my Cisco account and i went to the ASAv download page (https://software.cisco.com/download/home/286119613/type/280775065/release/9.9.2).

Chose the qcow2 version and download it.

Go to the GNS3 website and download the ASAv virtual appliance https://docs.gns3.com/appliances/cisco-asav.html.

Open the GNS3 software and navigate to File > Import Appliance and choose the downloaded appliance.

Choose the appropriate qemu hardware emulation software.

Select the appropriate ASAv to import.

Wait until the network appliance is uploaded to the server.

Once the upload is done, we can use the appliance.

Create a new project.

From the firewalls category, drag the ASAv and start it.

Once the appliance boots up you will be able to connect to the console.

The appliance doesn't have any license. You can use it for testing purposes, but the throughput will be limited to 100kbps.

For testing purposes, this is enough.

At this point, we are able to visualize an ASAv and successfully connect to it's console.

In the next article i will connect the appliance to the outside word and i will create a IPSEC tunnel between this ASA and an OCI DRG.

Catalin Andrei

Master Principal Cloud Architect


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