If you are going to take a networking exam like CCNA, CCNP… it is better to practice with real routers. But when the budget is not big enough or you can only access to hardware in your school then router simulator softwares are the best things you can get for free. The followings are a number of free and popular router simulators you can download and practice with:
TOP 10 NETWORKING SIMULATION TOOLS/NETWORK TOOLS TO BECOME BETTER NETWORK ENGINEER. What do we understand by the term networking? Networking is the well- defined system of hardware connected together to facilitate resource sharing and communication internally or globally, as networks has various characteristics and numerous mediums wherein, information can be channelized.
ONLINE NS2 SIMULATOR Online NS2 simulator is our online service started for students, who feels to gain useful information through web. Our Online NS2 simulator offers you all types of service regarding NS2 i.e tutoring service; guidance on projects/research, NS2 based topics support etc. We are working with students from 120+ countries and nearly developed 1000+ projects in NS2. Start Online Lab; Logging on to the router Logging in, modes and help options. Setting the system clock Changing the system clock on a router: Displaying router system information Find out useful router info: Copy the running configuration to start-up configuration. Oct 08, 2017 The network simulator, Packet Tracer, is available as a free download at the completion of an online self-paced course. However, you might also consider looking into the Cisco Learning Labs as well. The Cisco Learning Labs are not free but they provide guided virtual practice labs powered by real Cisco IOS with objectives and solutions. I’m a networking student (BSc) in my final year of Uni and I have chosen to base my final year project on simulating an Indoor Positioning System (IPS). Is there any free network simulator software that I can use as a tool to develop and demonstrate a working IPS within a simulation. Connections to all devices are totally free, All devices are online and running in a lab environment Devices are configured with OSPF, EIGRP, HSRP and more. Feel free to change any configuration All devices configuration is reset every 24 hours If a device looses communication because of changing mgmt interface my nagios server will fix it ?.
GNS3 – GNS3 is a graphical network simulator that allows simulation of complex networks. It is an excellent complementary tool to real labs for Cisco network engineers, administrators and people wanting to pass certifications such as CCNA, CCNP, CCIP or CCIE. This project is an open source, free program that may be used on multiple operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and MacOS X.
Screen shots: Intermatic st01c programming astronomic timer manual.
Packet Tracer – Packet Tracer 5.0 is the latest version of Cisco Networking Academy’s comprehensive networking technology teaching and learning software. Innovative features of Packet Tracer 5.0, including powerful simulation, visualization, authoring, assessment, and collaboration capabilities, will help students and teachers collaborate, solve problems, and learn concepts in an engaging and dynamic social environment. Moreover, it’s totally free! You can download this software but you need to register first or you can find a mirror download with google (with keyword “download packet tracer”)
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SemSim – The free trial version (2.3MB) offers some CCNA exam router simulation labs & 20 flash cards
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Online Network Simulator Free Download
Boson NetSim – Boson offers three certification-focused products, NetSim for CCENT 7.0, NetSim for CCNA 7.0 and NetSim for CCNP 7.0. The NetSim for CCNA 7.0 product contains CCNA-specific lab exercises that cover the skill set you will need to prepare for your CCNA exam. The demo version (21.58MB) is a good choice to get started.
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CertExamsoffers advanced network simulators including router / switch / terminal simulator. The simulators help in preparing for networking exams such as ccna or jncia. It would also be very helpful for those who want to get started with configuring Cisco or Juniper routers in a simulated environment. The demo version (6.95MB) is limited to:
– Six lab exercises
– Router simulator is limited to User EXEC, Previleged EXEC, and Global Configuration mode commands.
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RouterSim’s CCNA Network Visualizer – You can design, build and configure your own network. The demo version is 44.49MB. It is ideal for:
– Anyone studying for the Cisco® CCNA™ 640-802 exam
– Deployment over a LAN network
– Distance education and deployment on a Citrix server or Microsoft Terminal Services
– Corporate trainers and employees
– Students at colleges, universities, and technical institutes
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List of Network Simulators and Emulators
This is a list of open-source network simulators and network emulators that run on Linux or BSD. Please post a comment on this page to let me know about any other open-source network simulation tools I did not include in this list.
Antidote (NRE Labs)
Antidote is a network emulator combined with a presentation framework designed to create and deliver networking technology training. Its user interface operates in a web browser, including the terminals that students use to run commands on emulated network devices and servers
Please click here to see my posts about Antidote.
Antidote web site: https://antidoteproject.readthedocs.io/en/latest
NRE Labs web site: https://labs.networkreliability.engineering Cloonix
The Cloonix network simulator provides a relatively easy-to-use graphical user interface. Cloonix uses QEMU/KVM to create virtual machines. Cloonix provides a wide variety of pre-built filesystems that can be used as virtual machines and provides simple instructions for creating other virtual machine root filesystems. Cloonix has an active development team, who update the tool every two or three months and who are very responsive to user input.
Please click here to see my posts about Cloonix.
Cloonix web site: http://clownix.net
CORE
The Common Open Research Emulator (CORE) provides a GUI interface and uses the Network Namespaces functionality in Linux Containers (LXC) as a virtualization technology. This allows CORE to start up a large number of virtual machines quickly. CORE supports the simulation of fixed and mobile networks.
CORE will run on Linux and on FreeBSD. CORE is a fork of the IMUNES network simulator, and it adds some new functionality compared to IMUNES.
Please click here to see my posts about the CORE Network Emulator.
CORE web site: http://cs.itd.nrl.navy.mil/work/core/index.php
EVE-NG
EVE-NG is a network emulator that supports virtualized commercial router images (such as Cisco and NOKIA) and open-source routers. It uses Dynamips and IOS-on-Linux to support Cisco router and switch images, and KVM/QEMU to support all other devices. It is available as a virtual machine image and may also be installed on a dedicated server running Ubuntu Linux.
EVE-NG is available in two editions: a professional version and a community edition. The community license is not clearly stated and I cannot find the source code, so I am wondering if this project is no longer an open-source project?
EVE-NG web site: https://www.eve-ng.net/community/
GNS3
GNS3 is a graphical network simulator focused mostly on supporting Cisco and Juniper software. GNS3 has a large user base, made up mostly of people studying for Cisco exams, and there is a lot of information freely available on the web about using GNS3 to simulate Cisco equipment.
GNS3 can also be used to simulate a network composed exclusively of VirtualBox and/or Qemu virtual machines running open-source software. GNS3 provides a variety of prepared open-source virtual appliances, and users can create their own.
Please click here to see my posts about GNS3.
GNS3 web site: http://www.gns3.com
IMUNES
A team of researchers at the University of Zagreb developed the Integrated Multi-protocol Network Emulator/Simulator (IMUNES) for use as a network research tool. IMUNES runs on both the FreeBSD and Linux operating systems. It uses the kernel-level network stack virtualization technology provided by FreeBSD. It uses Docker containers and Open vSwitch on Linux.
IMUNES supports a graphical user interface. It works well and offers good performance, even when running IMUNES in a VirtualBox virtual machine.
Please click here to see my posts about IMUNES.
IMUNES web site: http://www.imunes.net or https://github.com/imunes
Kathara
Kathara is a new version of Netkit, implemented using modern technologies like Docker, and backwards-compatible with Netkit labs. The Netkit project’s web site has a long list of interesting lab scenarios to practice, with documentation for each scenario.
Please click here to see my posts about Kathara and Netkit.
Kathara web site: http://www.kathara.org/
Netkit web site: http://wiki.netkit.org Mininet
Mininet is designed to support research in Software Defined Networking technologies. It uses Linux network namespaces as its virtualization technology to create virtual nodes. The web site indicates that the tool can support thousands of virtual nodes on a single operating system. Mininet is most useful to researchers who are building SDN controllers and need a tool to verify the behavior and performance of SDN controllers. Knowledge of the Python scripting language is very useful when using Mininet.
The Mininet project provides excellent documentation and, judging from the activity on the Mininet mailing list, the project is actively used by a large community of researchers.
Some researchers have created forks of Mininet that focus on specific technologies. I list projects based on Mininet below:
Please click here to see my posts about Mininet.
Mininet web site: http://www.mininet.org
NS-3
NS-3 is a discrete-event open-source network simulator for Internet systems, used primarily for research and educational use. NS-3 is a complex tool that runs simulations described by code created by users, so you may need programming skills to use it.
NS-3 can run real software on simulated nodes using its Direct Code Execution feature. This allows researchers to test real software like Quagga or web servers in a discreet-event network simulation to produce repeatable experiments.
NS-3 is meant to replace NS-2, a previous version of the network simulator. NS-2 is no longer actively maintained but is still used by some researchers.
I have not used NS-3, yet.
NS-3 web site: https://www.nsnam.org/
Shadow
Shadow is an open-source network simulator/emulator hybrid that runs real applications like Tor and Bitcoin over a simulated Internet topology on a single Linux computer, and also on a pre-configured AMI instance on Amazon EC2. Users run a simulation by creating an XML file to describe the network topology and plugins to link their application code to nodes in the simulation. They see the results of their experiments in log files generated by Shadow.
Shadow operates as a discrete-event simulator so experimental results are repeatable. Shadow can also run real software on its virtual nodes, using plugins created by the user. This combination of features — discreet-event simulation coupled with real software emulation — makes Shadow a unique tool.
I have not yet used Shadow. It seems to be useful to developers who want to test the performance of distributed or peer-to-peer applications like TOR and Bitcoin.
Shadow network simulator web site: https://shadow.github.io/
VNX and VNUML
VNX supports two different virtualization techniques and uses an XML-style scripting language to define the virtual network. It also supports chaining multiple physical workstations together to support distributed virtual labs that operate across multiple physical workstations. It is supported by a small community and has been updated within the past year.
VNX replaces VNUML. The old VNUML web site still has sample labs and other content that would be useful when using VNX.
Please click here to see my posts about VNX and VNUML.
VNX web site: http://www.dit.upm.es/vnx
vrnetlab
Vrnetlab, or VR Network Lab, is an open-source network emulator that runs virtual routers using KVM and Docker. Software developers and network engineers use vrnetlab, along with continuous-integration processes, for testing network provisioning changes in a virtual network. Researchers and engineers may also use the vrnetlab command line interface to create and modify network emulation labs in an interactive way.
Please click here to see my posts about vrnetlab.
vrnetlab web site: https://github.com/plajjan/vrnetlab
Wistar
Wistar is an open-source network emulator originally developed by Juniper Networks and released under the Apache license. Wistar also supports Linux virtual machines and, interestingly, uses cloud-init to configure them from the Wistar user interface. Wistar also supports generic virtual appliances, in a basic way.
Please click here to see my posts about Wistar.
Wistar web site: hhttps://github.com/Juniper/wistar
Do it yourself using Linux tools and applications
Linux provides many different ways to build a network emulator using open-sourcevirtualization technology and tools. Some examples are: KVM and Libvirt, Docker and Compose, Openstack and Devstack, VirtualBox, Vagrant, Ansible, Linux bridges, Open vbSwitch, and many more.
Many of the network emulators described in this blog us some of the tools mentioned above to implement their functionality.
Please click here to see my posts about building your own network emulator.
Other Emulators and Simulators
I list projects below that are either very new or that are older with low development activity.
New projects (on the radar)
Containernet is a fork of the Mininet network emulator that allows you to use Docker containers as hosts in emulated network topologies.
The Knet network emulator uses Docker containers to build network nodes, and it uses Open vSwitch to create switches. KNet has both a CLI and a web interface.
The Educational Network Simulator is a very simple educational network simulator intended to be used with 15-16 year old students.
Labtainers is a network emulator based on Docker containers that also provides many prepared labs that focus on cybersecurity scenarios.
The cnet network simulator enables development of and experimentation with a variety of networking protocols in WAN, LAN, and WLAN networks.
NetMirage is a network emulator developed at the University of Waterloo in Canada. It is currently available as an open beta. Similar to other network emulators, NetMirage allows users to run real code to test IP applications. The NetMirage developers are currently using it to construct large-scale virtual Tor networks.
ESCAPE (Extensible Service ChAin Prototyping Environment) is a framework which supports the development of several parts of the service chaining architecture including VNF implementation, traffic steering, virtual network embedding, etc.
OMNeT++ discrete event simulator and the INET Framework combine to simulate wired, wireless and mobile networks.
Netsim is a network simulator framework for Rust programmers who need to test their networking code.
The Virtual Model for IP Network Architecture Lab, also known as VIMINAL, has been updated to Version 2.0 and now incorporates KVM and LXD to create virtual labs.
Older projects (low activity)
Yet Another Network Simulator, also knowns as YANS, makes it easy to emulate simple networks. See more details about YANS. There have been no updates in two years.
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DockEMU is a network emulator that uses Docker Containers and Linux Bridging to emulate IP network functionality and NS-3 to emulate Ethernet and physical networking functionality. It seems like an effort to create a “best of both worlds” network emulator. After releasing the first version, it has not been updated in two years.
Marionnet allows users to define, configure and run complex computer networks on a host computer. Marionnet seems designed to be used as an education tool and has an attractive graphical user interface, and some sample practice lab configurations. The Marionnet project released a new version, 0.94, in January 2018.
Psimulator2 is a Java-based network simulator useful for basic networking education. It is an old project, recently forked a couple of times by different developers so, hopefully, we will see some active development in the future. The Psimulator2 Google Code web site is now read-only and there appears to be a new version (or it may just be an archive of the current version) at https://gitlab.fit.cvut.cz/psimulator2/Psimulator2. Another developer forked Psimulator and made his updated code available at https://github.com/rkuebert/psimulator.
LINE is a network emulator that emulates IP networks and supports detailed analysis and reporting. It has not been updated in four years.
LStacker is builds virtual networks consisting of containers and bridges. It supports both LXC and Docker containers. It was created three years ago but has not been updated since.
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