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How-to : VMware Workstation 8 and GNS3 integration

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VMware Workstation and GNS3 are two platforms which are very handy to test and evaluate solutions before live implementation. By default each of those platforms is separate, however both have components which allow integration. What that means is that it is possible to have virtual machines hosted on VMware Workstation to communicate with Cisco equipment which is running oin GNS3.

By default VMware Workstation has 10 virtual networks which are named VMnet0, VMnet1, … , VMnet9. Each of those networks can be used as:

  • Bridged – virtual network connected seamless way to physical adapter. Virtual machines connected to bridged network will appear in same network as physical adapter connected to computer.
  • NAT – VMware will translate virtual network and computers connected to that network and allow communication acting as gateway
  • Host-only – network available only for virtual machines connected to it. private network for virtual machines.

Configuration of virtual networks is flexible and can be adjusted easily. Each of virtual networks can be also presented on host computer as network adapter.

In GNS3 environment we have Cloud Node Type which can be configured to communicate with any network adapter installed on the computer on which GNS3 is running

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5

How-to : Create virtual machine template for VMware Workstation 8

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Often using VMware Workstation platform we need to quickly create new virtual machine. reasons for that might be different. For example additional machine for our Lab environment or just quick test without affecting other machines we have setup in our virtual environment.

Installing whole operating system with all applications we used to have in our setup might be time consuming process. That is why it is worth to consider creating and using templates to be able quickly generate virtual machines we need.

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0

Simple L2L IPsec VPN on Cisco

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This is simple Lab environment I built when was working on IPsec VPN tunnel between our internal network environment and 3rd party vendor systems. As we had some issues with establishing IPsec communication, to make sure that everything is fine on my side I start replicating live environment in Lab. To build test environment quick I use GNS3 as platform to run Dynamips hypervisor for IOS. That speeds up whole process of preparation and testing.


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41

Automating file transfer via SFTP i FTPS using WinSCP

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Some time ago I received request to automate file transfer between FTP server and Development systems. Both, FTP server and Development system, are Windows-based. FTP server was running FTP over SSL only, so that automatically eliminated built-in Windows FTP command-line app. As I was using WinSCP in the past decided to do quick check if it is possible to use it in batch mode, so I can create script and run it on Windows Task Scheduler to automate whole process.

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