- In this video, I'm going to show you how to install GNS3 version
2.2 on a Windows computer. In this example, I've
got a Windows laptop. It's a brand new laptop
running Windows 10. GNS3 hasn't been installed
previously on this laptop. I'm controlling the laptop
via VNC from my Mac. It just makes it easier to do recordings. One of the important things
that you need to understand with regards to GNS3 is GNS3 has a client and a server component. (upbeat techno music) Now, an important thing
to understand about GNS3 is GNS3 consists of two main components. We have a Windows client and
then we have the GNS3 VM. The Windows client is a Windows executable which you run locally on your
Windows operating system. But you also have a virtual machine, this an Ubuntu VM that you run in either a hypervisor such as VirtualBox or VMware WorkStation Pro
or VMware WorkStation Player or Hyper-V. So again, you have a Windows component and you have a virtual machine. At the moment, we use
the GNS3 GUI application, so the Windows application to
control the virtual machine and you build your topologies
using this Windows executable. GNS3 are working on a thin client which is basically a web browser client. In this release however,
it's kind of limited, you can't do much with it. So I'm gonna show you mainly how to use the GNS3 GUI application, in other words, the executable
to control the GNS3 VM. In this video, I'm gonna show you how to download that executable, how to build a basic topology within GNS3. In subsequent videos,
I'll show you how to use the GNS3 VM and run Cisco IOS images and other images on the GNS3 VM. You have an important decision to make, once you've got your GUI up and running, you need to decide which
hypervisor you're going to use. Are you going to use VirtualBox? Now there are lots of
restrictions with VirtualBox. Are you gonna use VMware Workstation Pro or VMware Workstation Player or are you gonna use ESXi to run this on a full VMware server? So in subsequent videos, I'll show you how to do installations using those hypervisors such
as Hyper-V and so forth. In this video, let me show you how to use the GNS3 GUI application and get a basic network working. Okay, so let's get started. The first thing you need to
go is go to the GNS3 website. So you go to GNS3.com, click free download. GNS3 is free software available under the GNU General Public License. You even need to sign up for an account or click login and login
with your credentials. So now that I've logged in, I'm asked do I want to
download the GNS3 GUI for Windows, Mac, or Linux. I'm gonna download the GUI for Windows and as you can see, the
executable is downloaded. I'll close this window
and click download again. Notice we're told that
for optimal performance we can also download the GNS3 VM. Now as I've mentioned, I'll
cover this in a separate video. You can download the GNS3 VM VirtualBox for VMware Workstation Pro,
VMware Workstation Player, VMware Fusion, if you've
got a Mac, or ESXi. Now they haven't updated
their website yet, but if you go to Google
and search for GNS3 GitHub, this link releases GNS3, GNS3 GUI. Shows us that the latest
release of GNS3 is version 2.2, released eight days ago at
the time of this recording. What I want to point out here, I'll just zoom in, is they have a GNS3 VM for Hyper-V, as well at KVM, VirtualBox,
ESXi, and VMware Workstation. So if you want to use
the GNS3 VM with Hyper-V, you can use this link. I'll put this link and
other links below this video so you don't have to try
and find the documentation and links yourself. Okay, but for the moment, I've downloaded the GNS3 GUI. So I'll open that up. So here's the download. I'm gonna simply double click on that, click install anyway. I'm gonna click yes to allow
this app to make changes to my device. The GNS3 setup wizard displays. For most of this video, I'm
just gonna take the defaults to keep things simple and get us started. So I'm gonna click next. GNS3 is licensed under the
GNU General Public License. In other words, the software is free, but you do need to agree to that license, so I'm gonna click agree. You need to choose a start folder. I'm gonna go with the
default and click next. Now GNS3 consists of the
core GNS3 application but it also contains other applications such a WinPcap, Wireshark,
Dynamips, QEMU, VPCS, and others. You can decide whether you want to install all of these applications or not. So as an example, you may decide that you don't want to use Solar PuTTY and you can uncheck that. What I recommend that you
do if you're new to GNS3 is just stay with the defaults. So that's what I'm gonna do here. I'm gonna simply click next. I'm gonna go with the default
installation directory and click install. GNS3 will now install the
various software components. One of those is WinPcap,
so I'm gonna click next, click agree, click install, click finish. Notice GNS3 is now downloading
Wireshark from the internet. So if you are using mobile data, just be aware that Wireshark
is gonna be downloaded if you selected that
as one of the options. So GNS3 is actually
connecting to the internet, downloading Wireshark and
then installing it silently. Notice the S share. So silent installation of Wireshark. So if you're paying for data rather than having unlimited data, just be aware that the
initial GNS3 application doesn't include Wireshark. That's gonna be downloaded separately. Once Wireshark is installed, the GNS3 installation continues and as an example, Solar
PuTTY is downloaded and then installed. If you want to use Solar PuTTY, you need to agree to the
End User License Agreement and click accept. You then need to put
in your email address, so put in your email
address and click continue. And as you can see here, the GNS3 installation has completed. I'm gonna click next and
now you have a choice, you can download the
Solarwinds Standard Toolset. Now, you don't have to
install this, it's optional. You could also use the
link below this video if you want to download that. I'm gonna say no here, click next. The checkbox Start GNS3 is selected, I'm gonna keep that and
click finish to start GNS3. A GNS3 thank you page is
displayed, I'm gonna close that. And what you'll notice
now is GNS3 has started up and a setup wizard is displayed. I'm gonna click cancel
on that setup wizard. This is important and this
is what you want to see. Notice under server summary, it says laptop with the name CPU RAM. In other words, GNS3 has
started successfully. Now if you have problems, the first thing I recommend that you do is close GNS3 down. I've often had to shut down
GNS3 and start it up again after the initial installation
to get it working. Again, when GNS3 starts, just wait. Notice server summary
is blank at the moment. I want to get to the point
where I see this servers summary and I want to see it as green. If you don't see that, restart GNS3. Restart your laptop, so
reboot the entire computer. If that also doesn't work, then look at your firewall and antivirus. Typically antivirus
and typically firewalls stop the GNS3 server process from running. So make sure that you
permit the GNS3 executable, the GNS3 server in your antivirus. So notice here I can see GNS3 is running. Make sure, if necessary,
that you permit that through your firewall, permit that in your antivirus. Okay, so just to do that process again, when I shut down GNS3
and start it up again, I'm told that I need to create a project. Notice it's still starting up,
connecting to local server, just wait for that process to start. Make sure that you see this and now I can create a new project. So myfirstgns3project, click okay. Now what I suggest you do initially, is set up a very basic topology. So I'm gonna drag a
switch into the typology. I'm also gonna drag two VPCS
devices into the typology. Start with something very basic and make sure that it works. I'm gonna click on add a link. I'm gonna add a link from the
PC to the switch, like that. I'm gonna show interface labels like that. Now GNS3 has a lot of functionality. One of the things that
you can do is right click and then change the symbol. If you don't like built in
symbols, then change them. So as an example, I'm
gonna go for circle blue. So affinity-circle-blue
and search for client and I'm gonna change that
symbol to a blue client. Right click on this one, change symbol, circle blue, client, change that icon. On the switch, I'll
change the symbol as well. I'm gonna go for square blue in this case and select switch, click okay, and I've got a switch in my typology. Now if you want to make it look good, click snap to grid. So go to view, snap to
grid, and show the grid, and then you can get these
devices to snap to a grid. So that looks better. Move it around as you like,
zoom in if you want to, and then what I'll do
now is remove the grid so that my typology looks
good, something like that. And then what I'll so is click start to start up the typology and then I'm gonna open up
a consult to the devices. Now in this example, I
installed Solar PuTTY. So Solar PuTTY has started up. I had an issue where the
PCs weren't displayed, so I restarted Solar PuTTY
so that I could see both PCs. But what you'll notice is
that the font is really small, so I'm gonna click on
the menu, go to settings, go to general, and at the bottom here, we've got this option, fonts and colors, and I'm gonna launch PuTTY. You have to make these
changes within PuTTY, I'm gonna go to appearance
and I'm gonna change the appearance to bold and let's say 18 to make it very big. I'm gonna click okay, go to session, click default settings,
click save, click cancel, close Solar PuTTY down, open it up again by clicking on the console option and what you'll notice now
is my fonts are a lot bigger. That's still not big enough. Then again, just go into
the menu, setting, general, launch PuTTY, appearance, change, let's set this to 20, click okay, session, click default settings,
click save, click cancel, close Solar PuTTY down, open it up again, and that's how you change
the fonts in Solar PuTTY. I'll make this a bit smaller. So there we go. Now in my typology, I've
got two PCs, PC1 and PC2. So what I'll do is do a quick test, set the IP address of PC1 to
10.1.1.1 with a slash 24 mask. PC2 IP address, 10.1.1.2 255.255.255.0. Once you've done that, if everything is working properly, you should be able to ping
from one PC to the other and I can, PC1 can ping
PC2 and PC2 can ping PC1. So again, PC1 can ping
PC2 and PC2 can ping PC1. I've successfully downloaded
and installed the GNS3 GUI, I've successfully built a basic network, I've changed some settings in Solar PuTTY. The last thing I need to do
is save my configuration. GNS3 doesn't automatically save the configurations of
devices like, for instance, Packet Tracer does, you have to manually save
your device configurations. Now, I don't need to
save the configurations of this built in switch in GNS3, but I do need to save the
configurations of my VPCS devices. So what I can do now is shut GNS3 down. So it'll turn off the devices
and it will close GNS3 down. I'll close Solar PuTTY
down and then to prove that everything is working, I'll start up GNS3 once again. Wait for your servers to start. So wait for GNS3 to start up the servers. I can click on recent projects now. Here's myfirstgns3project, click on that. That'll open up my
project I'll click start, click connect to console, and hopefully now, I should
have my typology back, which I do. So PC1, can it ping PC2? Yes, it can. Can PC2 ping PC1? Yes, it can. So that's how you download
and install the GNS3 GUI. The next step is you need to integrate the GNS3 GUI with the GNS3 VM. But that means you have
to make a decision. Are you gonna use VM Workstation
Pro, VM Workstation Player, the VirtualBox, Hyper-V, ESXi? What are you going to use
for your hypervisor software to run the GNS3 VM? Now once you've made that decision, have a look at the list of
videos I've linked below or in this playlist. Decide which method you're going to use and then select the relevant video for the hypervisor that
you're going to use. Now, if you don't mind, please would you subscribe
to my YouTube channel, please would you like this video, and please click on the
bell to get notifications. I'm David Bombal and I want
to wish you all the very best. (upbeat techno music)
