Gns3 very useful tool to simulate real networks and systems. In the first days of its Gns3 was simple Cisco IOS image emulator. But recent years its development has gained momentum. This made Gns3 a multi-platform, flexible real-world simulator. Gns3 supports systems like Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, Pfsense, Docker, etc. In this tutorial, we will look at how to install Gns3 to the Fedora 64 bit.

Get Gns3 Installation Files

Gns3 files are hosted on GitHub. There are different ways to get these files. Git tool can be used to get all Gns3 and history or current version can be downloaded with wget. GNS3 uses server and client architecture and maintained in two git projects we should download both of them.

Client:

The latest version of the GNS3 Client files can be downloaded with the following command.

$ wget https://codeload.github.com/GNS3/gns3-gui/zip/master

Server:

The latest GNS3 server installation files can be installed with the following command.

$ wget https://codeload.github.com/GNS3/gns3-server/zip/master

We will unzip these files with

$ unzip gns3-gui-master.zip

$ unzip master.zip

Install Gns3 Dependencies

Now we have to get core Gns3 files we need to install dependencies to install Gns3. There are different type of dependencies but following command simple install all dependencies.

$ sudo dnf install kernel-devel gcc python3-devel python3-setuptools python3-PyQt4 redhat-lsb.x86_64  redhat-rpm-config -y && sudo pip3 install netifaces

Get Dynamips

Dynamips is the Cisco IOS emulator. To run Arm-based Cisco IOS we need Dynamips.

$ git clone https://github.com/GNS3/dynamips.git

Install Dynamips Dependencies

We will enter to the dynamips directory

$ cd dynamips/

and create a directory named build

$ mkdir build

and then enter the build directory

$ cd build

and create Makefile with cmake

$ cmake ..

Now we will compile the dynamips

$ make

after compilation, we will install compiled binaries

$ sudo make install

Get IOU Emulator

IOU is used to emulate x86 Cisco images.

$ git clone https://github.com/GNS3/iouyap.git

Install IOU Dependencies

We will install bison and flex to compile

$ sudo dnf install bison flex -y

$ git clone http://github.com/ndevilla/iniparser.git

$ cd iniparser

We will compile the source files

$ make

After compilation, we will copy produced binaries and libraries to the lib directory

$ sudo cp libiniparser.* /usr/lib/                                                                           
$ sudo cp src/iniparser.h /usr/local/include 
$ sudo cp src/dictionary.h /usr/local/include

Install IOU

Enter to the iouyap directory

$ cd iouyap/

Compile source code with the make.

$ make

And install compiled binaries and libraries with the make install command like below.

$ sudo make install

Run GNS3

Simple run gns3 command. This command will start gns3-server first and then start client application which will connect to the gns3-server .

$ gns3