Anyone know about/using non-Cisco virtual networking devices?

I'm doing some research into GNS3, a virtual networking environment (https://gns3.com/software). GNS3 has good support for Cisco via an emulator called Dynamips. I'm trying to get a better general handle on just _how_ other types of virtual networking devices _work_: essentially, how they are hosted, etc. I'm wondering if anyone here has experience using virtual networking devices -- e.g., F5 BIG-IP VE's? Or, any other virtualized device, for that matter. E.g., it looks to me like F5 VE's can run on Linux KVM (https://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/manuals/product/ve-supported-hypervisor-matrix.html). Has anyone here done something like this? Anything like this running in the KD Lab? What about Check Point? I'm having a hard time figuring out whether or not it would be even possible to virtualize/emulate a Check Point device (virtualizing GAiA possibly)?

Hi, Hawkeye,


Most of the devices in our Lab are running on VMs.


For Check Point we download the ISO installation files and run the instalation on VMs just

like you would with any other operating system.

Our F5 devices in kdlab are virtual. set them up for us. As Shouky mentioned, majority of our devices are virtual. In fact, we've approx 15 virtual Checkpoint devices covering a variety of models. We are planning to set up a couple of virtualized fortinet devices here shortly.

Thanks. This is an old thread, not something I'm still working on. In any case, I should have updated it before with what I eventually found on the topic:


GNS3 supports any device for which there is a GNS3 "appliance" (http://docs.gns3.com/1FFbs5hOBbx8O855KxLetlCwlbymTN8L1zXXQzCqfmy4/index.html#h.appliances). I'm not %100 sure or convinced that link shows every appliance -- there may be more, but that's the most comprehensive list I can find. It's certainly a LOT more than just Cisco devices.

Honestly, I don't exactly understand what these "appliances" do or really how they work. From what I can tell, a given appliance just provides a template to make it easier to add a given virtual device to GNS3. This link (https://goo.gl/PMo16j) explains a little about using Qemu (virtualization/emulation for linux) with GNS3, and has this quote: "Most manufacturers offer Qemu images which can also be used with GNS3." Qemu images can be loaded directly into GNS3. My point is, I don't think you _need_ an appliance to create and load supported images (Qemu, VirtualBox, VMWare, Docker) into GNS3 -- the appliance is just a convenience (I think). The GNS3 docs are pretty thin, esepcially for a newbie like me :(

We're going to be spinning up virtual FortiGate's in the lab and I also run virtual FortiGate's. I use ESXi, you can also convert it to a qcow2 file and get it running in GNS3.


There are also virtual Cisco ASA's (ASAv), virtual Palo Alto's, and a slew of other vendors.

the best tool I have used is EVE-NG. You can simulate almost all kinds of devices.