- In this video, I'm going to discuss Cisco VIRL version 2.0. This is the newest version of Cisco VIRL which should hopefully be
released in April 2020. I spoke with Ralph and Simon,
core developers of Cisco VIRL, at Cisco Live 2019. I've linked that video here and below if you're interested in seeing
details of Cisco VIRL 2.0. In this video, however,
I'm going to show you how to download and install Cisco VIRL, how to get it up initially, and build a basically topology. The Cisco VIRL team have
really simplified the process. Rather than you having
to install a thick client and a virtual machine and do a whole bunch of other
things to get it working, the installation is very, very simple. Okay, so let's get started. ♪ Let's go ♪ In this video, I'm gonna show
you how to get Cisco VIRL 2.0 up and running on a Windows 10 computer. To get that working, you
need virtualization software. Currently the only
virtualization software supported is VMware Workstation Pro or
VMware Workstation Player. VMware Workstation Player is free software that you
can download from vmware.com or you can get the paid version
of VMware Workstation Pro. But I'm gonna show you how
to get this up and running without paying for VMware Workstation Pro. We're gonna use Player,
which is free software. There is no thick client anymore. All you need to download
is the OVA from VIRL as well as an ISO that
contains all the images. The huge advantage with Cisco
VIRL over other products such as GNS3 or EVE-NG is you get all the Cisco
images such as IOSv, IOSv Layer 2, ASAv, you get Nexus V. You get a whole bunch of Cisco images as part of your download. You download a separate ISO
that has all the images, you get an OVA which runs
the core VIRL product, you get an ISO, you map that ISO to your virtual machine that you import using the OVA, and you get access to all
the images that you require. You can also add your own images, you can download updated images and use that with Cisco VIRL. One of the advantages of using Cisco VIRL over other products is
you get all the images. The installation is also a lot simpler than EVE-NG and even GNS3. Installation is very, very simple. It's much easier to get prebuilt images up and running with Cisco VIRL. If you're new to
virtualization technologies, if you're new to Cisco images
such as IOSv, IOSv Layer 2, I'd recommend that you get Cisco VIRL. It makes life a lot easier. Now, there are some disadvantages
to using Cisco VIRL. You have to pay a license
fee of about $200 a year. But you need to pay that license fee even if you wanted to use Cisco images in other virtualization technologies such as GNS3 or EVE-NG. You need to be legally compliant. This is, actually, the only non-gray area, totally legal way of running Cisco images because you're getting
a Cisco official product with Cisco official support. Cisco VIRL is probably the
best product to use today if you wanna run Cisco images and you wanna make sure that
you're on the right side of the law. There are no gray areas. This is an official product from Cisco and you get all the images as part of your subscription service. Another disadvantage of Cisco VIRL is it's limited to 20 devices. You can't run more than 20
devices in your topology. However, for a lot of us
that's more than enough. But if you're studying for your CCIE or you're trying to
replicate a large topology, you will be limited to
running only 20 devices in your topology. If you wanna run really
large-scale networks, you need to get a separate
product from Cisco. You could also try running
Cisco images in GNS3 and EVE-NG, but just be aware that you're running into a gray area legally if
you use those products. You cannot use VirtualBox with Cisco VIRL. I'm recoding this video in March 2020. The new release should be
available in April 2020. I've got a prerelease
version of Cisco VIRL here that I'm going to demonstrate. Please refer to the documentation for the latest information. I'll also be creating updated
videos if things do change, but, currently, you can
only use VMware products such as VMware Workstation Pro
or VMware Workstation Player. You cannot use VirtualBox
if you wanna run Cisco VIRL. However, VMware Workstation
Player is free software that you can download
from VMware's website. Simply go to vmware.com, go to Downloads, go to Free Product Downloads, and select Workstation Player. At the time of this recording,
the current release is 15.5. Click Download Now to download this version of
VMware Workstation Player. Current release is once again 15.5.2 and this sub-release ending in 246. I'm gonna click Save to save
that to my local hard drive. Size is 138 meg. Just be aware of the size,
it's 138 meg in size. Okay, so my VMware Player has downloaded. All I need to do is
double-click on the executable to start the installation. Windows warns me that I
downloaded this from the internet, I'm gonna click Install anyway. As you can see, VMware
Player is now installing. The installation is really simple. I'm, basically, just
gonna use the defaults when installing VMware Workstation Player. Okay, so the installation displays, I'm gonna click Next. I'm gonna accept the license agreement. Make sure that you agree
to the license agreement. Just that you're aware, VMware Workstation Player is
free for non-commercial use. If you wanna use a commercial product, you need to buy VMware Workstation Pro. But Player is free for
studying, as an example. I'm assuming that's what
most of us are gonna be using Cisco VIRL for, is for
building labs and studying. This product is great if you wanna simply study
for your CCNA, CCNP, or CCIE. I'm gonna click Next. I'm gonna leave the
installation folder defaults, click Next. I'm not gonna join the VMware Customer Experience
Improvement Program. I'm gonna click Next. I'm gonna keep the default shortcuts, click Next. Now, just before I click Install, I'm gonna open control panel, and I want you to see that
under Network and Internet, Network and Sharing Center, Change adapter settings, that I don't have a
VMware Workstation Player network interface card, but I do have a VirtualBox
network interface card. That's because I previously installed VirtualBox on this computer. Now, when I click Install, what you'll notice is
VMware Workstation Player will create a network interface. That is normal behavior. It's expected that
VMware Workstation Player creates a specific network
adapter for the application. That is, once again, default behavior. You can see here that it's installing virtual network drivers, and you can see in control panel that two VMware virtual ethernet
adapters have been created. There you go, I've now installed
VMware Workstation Player. I'm gonna click Finish. Software is now installed. I can double-click on the desktop icon. Product has now started. Notice, we're told that it's
for non-commercial use only. You might get a pop-up
that you have to agree to when you first start the software. You can see here that I've
got Kali-Linux and EVE-NG PRO as virtual machines on
this computer ready, but that's not the virtual
machine that we wanna start. What we wanna do is download Cisco VIRL. I'm gonna go to virl.cisco.com
to download Cisco VIRL. Now, you do need an account
to download this software. I'm gonna click Get VIRL. Notice, you can see the price. $199 per year at the
time of this recording. That gives you 20 nodes. Again, you are limited to
20 nodes in your topologies. $200 a year. In my example, I already have an account, so I'm gonna click Log In, I'm gonna put in my username, click Next. Put in my password, click Sign in, and I'm gonna go to my account. My current VIRL account is still active. I'm gonna click Download VIRL. Now, this site can be slow, so you may need to wait
for the page to refresh. As I mentioned previously, I'm recording this video
before Cisco VIRL 2.0 has been officially released. So, when I click on the downloads, I don't see version 2
Cisco VIRL downloads, I only see previous
releases of Cisco VIRL. As an example here, I
can see version 1.6.65. If I click on one over here, I can see different releases of Cisco VIRL and I can download various IOS
images such as IOSv Layer 2. Now, typically, in the past,
you would have to download an OVA for Cisco VIRL or an ISO to do a bare metal installation. And the installation
was quite complicated. In this video, which I've
linked here and below, I show you how to install the
current release of Cisco VIRL. In other words, version 1.x. But now I'm gonna show you
how to install version 2. Hopefully, depending on when
you're watching this video, you'll see version 2
downloads on this page and you'll be able to
download Cisco VIRL version 2. Now, be aware, big warning, the download files are large. You have an OVA image. That's the actual Cisco VIRL image. It's only 700 meg. But this ISO that contains
the various images is 6.3 gig at the time of this recording. This OVA is the OVA that you
need to download and open in VMware Workstation Player. Then you need to map the
ISO in your virtual machine so that you can import the images. Let me show you how to do that. I'm going to go to Player, File, Open. Go to my downloads, and select the OVA. I'm simply opening this OVA
in VMware Workstation Player. I'm gonna click Open. I'm gonna leave everything at
defaults wherever possible. I'm gonna click Import. VMware Workstation Player
is now importing that OVA. As soon as it's imported, I should be able to boot up Cisco VIRL. In other words, the installation
is very, very simple. But before you boot it up, make sure that you right-click
and go to Settings. Now, by default, Cisco VIRL is configured
to use eight gig of RAM. That means that your computer needs to support eight gigs of RAM. If it doesn't, you need to lower the amount
of RAM that VIRL uses. But it's recommended that
you use eight gig of RAM. That's not possible on my computer. My computer only has eight gig of RAM. So, I'm going to lower this to 4,096. Four gig of RAM. Be careful lowering the amount of RAM. As always, if you lower the RAM and lower the amount of CPUs that a virtual machine can use, it means you can't build
as large topologies as you could if you allocate more RAM and more CPU to the virtual machine. Now, this is very important. Intel VT-x or AMD-V needs to be enabled, and we're gonna virtualize
CPU performance counters. Now, because I get this
question all the time, I'm gonna show you now,
as part of this video, how to enable VT-x in the BIOS of an Intel computer as
well as an AMD computer. If you already have VT-x
enabled on your computer, then skip to this timestamp in this video. For those of you who don't
know how to enable VT-x, I'm gonna show you that now. If you do know how to do that and you've already got it enabled, then jump to this point in the video. ♪ Let's go ♪ I'm gonna try and boot
up this Kali Linux host. And I get this error. Error while powering on: the
host supports Intel VT-x, but Intel VT-x is disabled. Intel VT-x might be disabled if it has been disabled in
the BIOS/firmware settings, or your host has not been power-cycled since you changed this setting. We're then told how to fix this issue. But rather than just trying to read this, I'm gonna show you how to do that. Now, that's an example on an Intel CPU. Let's have a look at AMD. Here's another laptop. This example is running
Windows 8 on an AMD processor. Similar kind of issue exists. I'll startup VirtualBox, and I'll try and boot
up the Kali Linux host. Notice, I get the same issue, failed to open a session
for the virtual machine. Here, we're told that AMD-V
is disabled in the BIOS, or by the host operating system. Once again in this example, I'm not able to boot up Kali Linux because AMD-V has been disabled
in the BIOS of the laptop. Now, in this example,
I've got an Asus laptop, it's got an Intel CPU, and I've got an HP laptop
that's got an AMD CPU. The process that you follow will vary depending on the manufacturer. On Asus, as an example, I need to reboot the laptop and press F2 to go into the BIOS settings. On HP, I need to use F10 to
go into the BIOS settings. Refer to the documentation
for your manufacturer to determine which key you need
to use to get into the BIOS. We'll just use Google to do a search to find out which key to
use to get into the BIOS for your specific laptop or computer. I'll now show you how to enable VT-x on a laptop that has an Intel processor as well as laptop that
has an AMD processor. Okay, so the first thing I need to do is shut the laptop down. I'm gonna click power, shutdown to shut the computer down. Laptop has been shutdown. Now, because this is an Asus laptop, I need to press power and F2. F2 will take me to the BIOS. As you can see, I'm now in
the BIOS of the computer. They tell you which keystrokes to use. As an example, right arrow will take me from one menu to the other. I've gone from the main menu to Advanced. What I wanna enable is Intel
Virtualization Technology. At the moment, it's disabled. So, I want to select that that option, once again, using the arrow keys. Go to Intel Virtualization
Technology, press enter, and then specify enabled. What I'm gonna do now is
use the right arrow key, go to Save and Exit, make sure that I've
selected Save and Exit, press enter, and then press enter again to save the configuration and exit. Laptop is now rebooted. Now I can enter my pin and log in. There you go, I've logged into the laptop. What I'm gonna do now is start VirtualBox, select Kali Linux, and then
go to Start to start it up. What you'll notice now
is the virtual machine can boot up successfully. There you go, Kali is booting, and I can now log in. Default username is Kali,
password is Kali once again. And I've successfully logged
in to this virtual machine that's running on a Windows
computer within VirtualBox. Same thing will happen
with VMware Workstation. Select the virtual machine, power it on, and I can once again boot
up the virtual machine, I can log in. Default username, Kali, Kali. And I'm able to log in to
this Kali virtual machine running within VMware Workstation Player on an Intel laptop. Okay, so I'll do something similar on this computer with an AMD processor. Go to the Start menu, I'll select power options, and I'll select Shut down
to shutdown the computer. Computer is now shutting down. Okay, this is a HP laptop,
so I need to use F10. I'll start the laptop, press F10. Okay, so something similar
needs to be done here. I'm gonna go to System Configuration, Virtualization Technology. Virtualization Technology
is currently disabled. What I need to do is press enter, select Enabled, press enter, and then I need to exit, so save my configuration and exit. Press enter to save the changes, laptop is now rebooted. We can see that the HP
laptop is booting up. This is an older laptop
so it's quite slow. I need to put my password in, press enter to log in. I've now successfully logged in. Okay, so I can start VirtualBox. I'll select my Kali Linux host, and then I'll press Start to start it up. As you can see, it's now booting up. I can select Kali Linux. I'll press enter. We can see that the
virtual machine is booting. Once again, this is a slow laptop, so it's taking its time to boot up. But there you go, after a while it booted. I can log in with my username
of Kali, password of Kali. And I've successfully logged
in to this virtual machine which is running within VirtualBox on a computer with an AMD processor. ♪ Let's go ♪ Okay, so VT-x is enabled in the BIOS. I've enabled it here
in the virtual machine. What I do need to do now,
which is very important, is connect an ISO image. I'm going to browse to
my downloads directory, and I'm gonna select this ISO image. Just to remind you once again, the OVA image is the virtual machine that we've imported. But the Cisco images that are required to run Cisco routers and
switches are part of that ISO. So, I need to add that
to the virtual machine. I'm gonna click OK. And I'm gonna click start
to boot up Cisco VIRL. Okay, so I'm told, do I
wanna download and install the following software tools? I wanna do that. VMware Tools for Linux, I wanna get those
downloaded and installed. My internet connection here
in South Africa is bit slow, so it's taking a bit of time to download. As always, speeds vary depending
where you're on the world. But as you can see here, the VMware Tools are being
downloaded and extracted. VMware is now being updated. Okay, so updates are finished. I'm gonna click Close. Notice, we now have a virtual
machine running VIRL 2. I'm gonna click in the virtual machine and press enter to continue. I have to agree to the license agreement. Use tab to jump from one
menu option to another. I'm gonna accept the end
user license agreement by pressing enter. We're told, welcome to VIRL 2 First Deployment Configuration. Before the system can be used, we need to set up two user accounts. You need a privileged
Linus system user account and the first admin
controller user account. After this, the admin
controller user can be used to log into the web UI
via HTTPS on TCP port 443. Basically, we need a
user account for the CLI and one for the GUI. I'm gonna press enter to continue. We're given some information
about how to navigate. Cursor keys, Control + P, Control + N can be used to navigate. You can press tab, you can use tab to switch
between input fields and buttons, space bar to select items. I'm gonna simply press enter to continue. Okay, so I'm gonna use
the default usernames that VIRL gives me. I'm gonna simply set my password to Cisco. Probably not a great
password, but there you go. Now, what I'm gonna do is use
Windows key and print screen to save a screenshot of what I've done so that I can remember the
username that I created. You don't have to do that, obviously, but that makes it easier for me. Press tab, press enter to continue. I'm told my password
must be eight characters. So, Cisco123, Cisco123. Press Continue. Now, we're told that the
password is quite bad, do I wanna continue anyway? Yes, I do, so I'm gonna press tab and press enter to continue. Told that my password isn't
strong, do I wanna continue? That's fine for my example. This is only a lab and a demonstration, so I'm not too concerned
about the passwords. Obviously, you will
wanna use good passwords, not like I'm doing here. Okay, so we now need to
create a second user. This is the admin user which is used to log into the web UI. I'm gonna set the password
to Cisco123 for this user. Then I'm gonna take a screenshot. Once again, on my screenshots,
I can see the username used for the web UI and also the user used
for the Linux system. Press tab, press enter to continue. I'm told once again that
my password isn't good, I'm okay with that. Password isn't strong, I'm okay with that. Say yes to continue. Now, you can use either a
static IP address or DHCP for your VIRL server. We're told here that it's optional to use a static IP address. It's typically okay to use DHCP. Only change this when a static IP address is actually required. I'm gonna simply use DHCP in this example and press enter to continue. A summary is displayed. I'll take a screenshot
of this page as well. I've got my summary information. Okay, press enter to confirm. That's, basically, all you
need to do to setup Cisco VIRL. The developers have
really made this simple compared to the previous
releases of Cisco VIRL. There's one more thing that I have to do, and that's license the VIRL server. But I'll do that through the web interface once the server has
completed the installation. Now, this isn't a very quick laptop, but there you go,
installation has completed. I can wait for the countdown or just press enter to reboot the server. And there you go, it's done. I could log in to the CLI. I don't wanna do that, I
wanna log into the GUI. I'm told the IP address to
use, which is 192.168.255.1. Okay, so I'm surprised by this IP address, 192.168.255.1. My local subnet is 10.0.0.0. So, that IP address doesn't look right. Let's see firstly if I
can ping that IP address. 192.168.255.1. At the moment, I can't
ping that IP address. Let's log in. My user account was sysadmin. Password was Cisco123. I'll use IP addr to see the address. We can see the IP address
here is 192.168.255.1. But what I'm gonna do
is shutdown the server. So, shutdown -h now to shutdown the server because I wanna see what VMware did with the network interface card. In VMware Workstation Player, I'll right-click on the virtual machine, go to Settings, go to Network Adapter. It says bridged here which is correct, but I'm gonna click Configure Adapters. Here's a problem. For some reason, we've got a VirtualBox host-only ethernet adapter. You shouldn't have that problem. This has affected me because
I'm running VirtualBox as well. So, I'm gonna only use my
Realtek wireless network adapter and click OK. Click OK again. Now, just to explain this, I wanna bridge this virtual
machine to my local network so that I can access the virtual
machine from the outside. Rather than using NAT or host-only, I wanna be able to bridge
VIRL to external devices, so I wanna use Bridged, but I wanna make sure
that I'm only bridged to my wireless network
adapter in this example. Let's start up VIRL again and let's see if that
works better this time. It's starting up. It's gonna boot up (mumbles) Linux. I like to do demonstrations
where I encounter problems so that you can see the
problems that I encounter, and perhaps if you also
encounter these problems, you can fix them. Okay, so that's a lot better. That's an IP address in my local subnet. I'm connected to a home
internet router here and its allocating IP address
is in the 10.0.0.0 subnet, so that looks a lot better. That's an IP address that I would expect. I'm gonna open up a web browser, and I'm gonna use HTTPS, and I'm gonna browse to 10.0.0.0.168. Okay, so we're told the
connection is not private. That's great. It's using self-signed certificate. I'm going to proceed
to the VIRL interface. There you go. I can log in now as my admin user. Once again, going to my screenshots, the admin user is the user to
use to log into the web UI. Sysadmin is for Linux. So, I'm gonna use admin,
password is Cisco123. Click Login, and there you go. I've got Cisco VIRL up and running. Now, something I need to do is
edit the licensing settings. I need to register my license. But there's nothing stopping
me going to Lab Manager and adding a lab. What I can do now is drag
Cisco devices into my topology. I can zoom in. There's two switches as an example. In my topology, I can move them around. I can drag a router into my topology. When I hover my mouse over the device, this little pop-up displays and I can click on the connection and drag that to the other device, and then decide which
interface to connect. I'm gonna connect gigabit
ethernet 0/0 on the router to ethernet 0/0 on the switch. Do the same thing here. Drag a connection. Connect gigabit ethernet 0/1 to gigabit ethernet 0/0 on the switch. Let's say drag another
route into the topology, move that around. Click here. Drag it to the router. Second ethernet interface of the switch to the first ethernet
interface of the router. Now, if I try and startup this topology by clicking on Simulate, Start Lab, notice, I get an error
message, system not licensed. You have to license your system before you can start using it. ♪ Let's go ♪
