Setting up a virtual network using GNS3 and

VirtualBox

By Shashank Shekhar Tewari

While I'm really interested in networking, it wasn't economically feasible for me to buy routers and
switches and multiple hosts to set up a home network. So while studying for my CCNA, I came
across GNS3 and slowly realised just how powerful it really was.

This software, along with a virtualisation software, can be used to set up very complex networks,
and can be used to simulate many common network scenarios. This tutorial aims to help a person
get an idea of how to set up such networks.

If you're studying anything related to networking, you can learn with this.

Doing a Cisco cert? GNS3 has been used for everything from Cisco Voice to CCIE level labs. You
can use the virtual hosts to actually see the effect your configuration has done. Sure, you've setup
an ACL, but is it really working? Just go to your virtual host and check. If you ping from a Cisco
router just after it's setup, why is the first ping never successful? Open up Wireshark and find out.

Learning to be a sys-admin? Both GNU/Linux OSes and Microsoft OSes can be used here. You can
setup a server with multiple clients, setup a mail server, etc. and see how everything works out.
Setup a simple Apache web server, and see how it looks like from a host's point of view.

Interested in security and pen-testing? What better combination than having Backtrack on one
end, and Damn Vulnerable Linux on the other? You can play around as much as you want,
completely destroy the victim's PC, and you'll be able to go back to the original state by just
opening up a saved state in Virtual Box. You can then check the Apache web server you just setup
for open ports and vulnerabilities.

Since nearly every GNU/Linux OS comes with as a live version now, you don't even have to install
them to a virtual hard disk to use them. Just boot it in any virtual hard disk you've created, and
start using it.

Although my preferred virtualisation software is VirtualBox, you can use any you want. The
settings will obviously differ. My host and guest OSes will nearly all be GNU/Linux, but both, GNS3
and VirtualBox, are available for Windows as well, and the instructions will pretty much be the
same. So if you're a Windows user, give the tutorial a try, and just use a little geek-sense to figure
out where things might differ.

While this has many, many applications, and the idea definitely isn't new, I did not find a decent
tutorial on it, and had to figure out a lot of things myself. Hence, now that I'm free, I decided to
write a tutorial myself.
 Part 1 – Basic VirtualBox Setup

Things required:
• Installation image of the OS being installed on the virtual machine. (In .iso format)
• Adequate free space for selected guest.
• Knowledge of basic networking. (know what ifconfig/ipconfig do)

What is VirtualBox?
VirtualBox is a free virtualisation software, which can be used on a variety of host operating
systems to run other operating systems in a virtual environment.

To download it, go here:

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

For a list of supported guest OSes, go here:

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Guest_OSes

Setting up a simple client-server network using VirtualBox

Open VirtualBox.

Click on the blue 'New' button.

This will start a wizard to create a new
virtual machine on your host OS. (Your
host OS is obviously the one on which
Virtual Box is installed.)

Give any name you want, and choose

the OS you want installed. You can
choose any OS you want to, although I'll
be installing RHEL 5.3. (This is simply a
label for the user's benefit and can be
changed later on.)

Choose the amount of memory you

want. This depends entirely on the OS
and the amount of memory you have on
your physical machine. I've chosen 512
MB, and I think that's quite safe for most
OSes.
Choose 'Create new hard disk'. Make
sure the 'Boot hard disk' option is
checked.

Another window pops-up, and this is the

'Create new virtual disk' wizard. This will
create a file on your host which will act
like a virtual hard disk.

At the next screen, it explains quite well

what kind of storage type it will create. I
prefer 'fixed-size', since I have the space
and I don't have to worry about an ever-
expanding file, but it's up to you and
doesn't matter either way. Click 'Next'.
Choose the size you want. 8-10 GB is
sufficient if you aren't going to use the
virtual OS for anything other than
learning networking.

Finally, click 'Next' and then 'Finish' to

create the virtual hard disk.

Now the newly created hard disk will be

automatically chosen as your hard disk
in the 'Create new virtual machine'
wizard, so just click 'Next', after which
you can review your settings at the next
screen, and finally finish to confirm.

We can review the settings of the newly

created hard disk by clicking on it, and
then clicking on the 'Settings' button. We
will go here to ensure the image file
starts on boot, and to confirm the
network settings.
First let's put the image of the OS we
want to install in the virtual machine's
CD/DVD drive. For this, click on
'Storage.' Notice under 'IDE Controller'
your newly created virtual disk and an
empty CD/DVD ROM drive are listed.
Click on the latter, and on the screen
that comes up next to it, click on the
yellow folder with the green arrow, which
is next to 'CD/DVD Device.'

Add the image file of your guest OS at

this screen.

Now under the main window of

'Settings', select 'System'. Change the
boot order, which comes up under the
tab 'Motherboard', to make sure the
CD/DVD drive boots up first.
The setting that we will check now is for
the 'Network'. Click on it, and you'll see
a screen that lists a number of adapters,
and the setting for each. Let's enable
network 'Adapter 1', and under the
'Attached to' field, we shall choose 'Host-
only' adapter for now. The name
'vboxnet0' will automatically come in the
box below that. Leave that as it is. Click
'OK' to confirm changes.

Now start the machine.

If all goes well, the machine will boot up

like a normal machine, and you can now
proceed to install your guest OS.

While the installation takes place, you can check the host OS's network settings, using
ifconfig/ipconfig. You should see a new adapter called 'vboxnet0'. Note the IP address. For me, it
is 192.168.56.1, but it may differ for you.

After installation, set up the network settings of your guest OS: (Change accordingly if your IP
address differs on the host OS)

IP address : 192.168.56.101/24
Default Gateway : 192.168.56.1

If necessary, restart your network service.

You should now be able to ping the host from the guest and vice versa.
Voilà! You now have a very simple client-server network setup. Play around with it, explore Virtual
Box, and when you feel you're comfortable with it, move on to the next tutorial.

Protip
If you notice your PC is hanging/slowing down while using Virtual Box, check your CPU usage. If
it's constantly at 100%, then do this:
Create another Virtual Machine, with a say 50 MB hard disk, and as little ram as possible, (4MB is
fine) and boot it till it halts at a black screen that says “FATAL: No bootable medium found!
System halted.”

Minimize this machine (DO NOT CLOSE IT) and run your normal guest OS. You'll now notice that
the CPU usage has dropped down dramatically, and will hover around 10-20%.

This is due to a weird bug in Virtual Box, wherein one machine causes excessive load, but if you
have another machine running simultaneously with the first one, Virtual Box manages to load
balance both of them.

Protip 2
Install 'Guest Additions' for your guest OSes, to make life much easier. Among the many
advantages, your mouse won't get captured each time you go to a virtual machine. It'll seamlessly
move from host to guest.

For a Windows guest, after starting the virtual machine, go to Devices > Install Guest Additions.

For a GNU/Linux guest, see this tutorial by Sasquatch:

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=15679
 Part 2 – Setting up the Network

Things required:
• Everything needed GNS3 to run. (The program itself and a Cisco IOS image)
• Knowing how to use GNS3 and how to do a basic configuration of a Cisco router
• VirtualBox

What is GNS3?
GNS3 is a very powerful graphical network simulator, that is normally used for preparation of
Cisco exams, like CCNA, CCNP, etc. While other simulators try to recreate the environment of
using a Cisco IOS, GNS3 uses the actual operating system itself. While there are many advantages
to this, the biggest is that you aren't limited to a certain set of commands. You can use any
command that would normally work on a router.

Of course, the downside is that you need to get a Cisco IOS image. Although there are many sites
that provide it, remember that it is illegal to download it, and Cisco does not give out the IOS for
free. If you can take an image of a router you own, that would be the best thing to do.

To download GNS3, go here:

http://www.gns3.net/download

Windows users should probably get the 'all-in-one' pack.

If you're using a GNU/Linux OS that has a repository, it's probably available over there as well.

Ubuntu users can run this:

$ sudo apt-get install gns3

For Fedora you can refer to this guide:

http://blog.ccielogs.com/step-install-gns3-linux/

In this tutorial, I'm going to jump right into configuration, and will not be talking about the basics
of how to use GNS3. Why? Simply because there's a lot of resources already out there. If you're
new to GNS3, then please read this fantastic tutorial:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gns-3/GNS3-0.5-tutorial.pdf

The latest version of GNS3 is .7x, and even though the tutorial is for .5x, it's still relevant. So read
it. Don't skim. Read the entire thing. I mean it.

You could also visit blindhog's site for lots of video tutorials:
http://www.blindhog.net/category/gns3/
Setting up a second network adapter in VirtualBox
Before moving on to GNS3, let's pay a short visit to VirtualBox. For this part, I have already set up
two virtual machines, both of them having RHEL. Again, you can choose whatever OS you want,
but make sure you have two virtual machines.

In the VirtualBox main window, go to

File > Preferences.
In the new window that pops up, choose
'Network'.

You'll now see the settings for 'Host-only'

networks. It'll list the 'vboxnet0' adapter.
We are now going to add another
adapter. Click on the little network card
icon with the green plus sign, that's next
to the network listings.

It'll add 'vboxnet1'. Click on 'vboxnet1

network', and then click on the
screwdriver.
You'll see a window pop-up that shows
the default settings for this adapter. You
can change it if you want, but for now
we'll go with the defaults. Click 'OK.'

Now back in the main VirtualBox

window, choose any one of your virtual
hard disks, click on 'Settings' and
highlight 'Network'. Here, enable
'Adapter 1', and attach it to 'Host-only
Adapter', just like we did last time. Only
this time, under the 'Name' drop down,
choose 'vboxnet1', which is the adapter
we just created. Click 'OK', and that's it.
We are done with the VirtualBox settings
for now.

Now on to GNS3.
Configuring GNS3
Start GNS3.

IMPORTANT: If you're using a GNU/Linux OS, then make sure you start GNS3 while signed in as
root, or through sudo by typing 'sudo gns3 &' in a terminal. This is important because if you don't
do so, you will not be able to access any network interface, including the ones we just created in
VirtualBox.

Also, definitely make sure you have applied idle pc values. If you don't know how to do this, read
the GNS tutorial I linked to earlier.

The router I'll be using is Cisco's 3640, mainly because it has some switching capabilities, but
since that's not needed for this, you can use any you want.

Drag the router, a couple of switches and

a couple of clouds onto the workspace.

Right-click on cloud 'C0' and choose

'Configure'. Click on 'C0', and under the
tab 'NIO Ethernet', you'll see 'Generic
Ethernet NIO' and 'Linux Ethernet NIO'.
Do the following steps under whichever
OS your host is. Since mine is Ubuntu, I
chose the Linux one. Choose 'vboxnet0'
in the drop down menu, and then click
on 'Add'.

You'll know see a listing for 'vboxnet0'.

Click 'OK'.
Follow the same steps for 'C1', only this
time choose 'vboxnet1'.

Let's move on to the router now.

I added four Ethernet interfaces to the

router, by right clicking on it, choosing
'Configure', highlighting 'R0' at the next
window, clicking on the 'Slots' tab, and
choosing 'NM-4E'. The name may be
different for your router, but choose
anything. We'll only need two interfaces
for this tutorial.

Now let's configure the router via the console. Long story short, these are the commands I ran:

Router>en
Router#conf t
Router(config)#hostname R0
R0(config)#int e0/0
R0(config-if)#ip add 192.168.56.254 255.255.255.0
R0(config-if)#no shut
R0(config-if)#int e0/1
R0(config-if)#ip add 192.168.57.254 255.255.255.0
R0(config-if)#no shut
R0(config-if)#do wr
Nothing too complicated. The networks 192.168.56 and 192.168.57 were chosen because of the
corresponding settings of vboxnet0 and vboxnet1.

Finally, we connect the clouds to the switches, and the switches to the corresponding interfaces on
the router.

Start the two virtual machines in VirtualBox. Setup static IPs on both hosts. The addresses I'll be
using are:

For C0
IP address : 192.168.56.10/24
Default Gateway : 192.168.56.254

For C1
IP address : 192.168.57.10/24
Default Gateway : 192.168.57.254

Restart your network interfaces, and that's it! You should now be able to successfully ping C0 and
C1. Now you have your own simple network to play around with!

Protip
If you're using a GNU/Linux OS, chances are that your terminal in GNS3 is an ugly-looking xterm.
To change it to gnome-terminal, go to Edit > Preferences. In that, below the terminal command,
just type this:

gnome-terminal --command='telnet %h %p' >/dev/null 2>&1 &

For any other terminal, just replace 'gnome-terminal' with your favourite terminal.

Protip 2
Instead of the cloud icon, you can choose a normal desktop icon in GNS3. To do this, go to Edit >
Symbol Manager. In the new window that pops up, highlight the 'computer' symbol in the left
column, and click on the '>' to the add it to the right column, under 'Customized nodes.'
Then highlight this, and under 'Customized node settings' put 'Host' under 'Name', and in the drop
down menu choose it as type 'Cloud.' Then click and 'Apply', and 'OK'.

You now have a nice looking PC icon. And I'm sure you knew about this tip, since you read the
GNS3 tutorial, didn't you?
 Part 3 – Introduction to Wireshark

Things required:
• The previous network we created, with the same settings
• Wireshark

What is Wireshark?
Wireshark is a free, and one of the best, packet analysers available. It is very useful in seeing
what packets are going through your network, and therefore helps in learning networking as well
as troubleshooting your network.

To download Wireshark, go here:

http://www.wireshark.org/download.html

Like most awesome things, even this is available in your favourite GNU/Linux repository.

Ubuntu users can run this:

$ sudo apt-get install wireshark

For Fedora:

# yum install wireshark

I would strongly suggest you use Wireshark on your current network adapter to get a feel of it. If
you're using GNU/Linux, you'll have to start it as root. Due to its immense popularity, a little
googling will get you innumerable tutorials.

Objective
Most of you would have heard/read strict warnings of never using telnet for remote access. The
preferred method nowadays is SSH (Secure Shell). But why is telnet so bad? Let's find out.

Procedure
As said before, the network we'll be using is the same one we used previously. Set everything up
exactly the same if you hadn't saved it. (You don't have to set up C1. We'll only be using one host
this time.) After this, let's configure the router for telnet access. The commands I entered were:

R0#conf t
R0(config)#line vty 0 4
R0(config-line)#password Shanx123
R0(config-line)#login
Now try telnetting to the router from C0. Since a telnet client is present on most operating
systems, you don't need to download anything. Just open up a console and type 'telnet
192.168.56.254', and enter the password.

After you've verified that it's working fine, exit from telnet, and let's use Wireshark now.

In GNS3, each node is visible as a green

or red dot, depending on whether it's
active or not. Right -click on the node
next to the route, and choose 'Capture'.
Select the source. Wireshark will open
automatically.

In some cases, you may get an error

that says 'No packets available for
capture.' In this case just right-click on
the node again, and you'll see an option
that says 'Start Wireshark.' Keep
selecting that until it starts.

Although while capturing packets in a

real network, Wireshark updates itself
automatically, while capturing with GNS3
we have to periodically reload it
ourselves. This is easily done by clicking
on the blue circular arrow.

If you keep reloading and scrolling down,

you'll see the various packets being
captured. This includes the occasional
CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol) packet,
maybe an ARP if you've just connected a
host, etc.
Let's see what happens when you telnet.
Again, telnet to the router from the host,
but do not type the password just yet.
Leave it at the login prompt. Go back to
Wireshark, and reload the file.

You'll see a bunch of telnet related

packets. Note the number of the last
packet, and now quickly go back to the
telnet login prompt and type the
password, and press 'Enter'.

Go back to Wireshark, reload, and start

analysing the telnet packets from the
last packet that you noted. If you look
under 'Telnet' in the description window,
you'll see a field called 'Data', which has
a single letter. That letter is the first
letter of your password. Look at the
packets below it, and you'll see your
entire password being sent in clear text.
Not only this, any subsequent data you
send will also be in clear text.

Now try doing the same with SSH and

see what its packets look like. I'll leave
that as an exercise for you. The
preference, nay, insistence on using SSH
over telnet will be instantly obvious.

EOF