Why use EVE-NG? It’s one of the most affordable ways to emulate enterprise networking hardware. You can SSH from your favorite terminal emulator and test your configuration scripts in a sandbox.
Prerequisites:
- Have an interest in Network Engineering
- Obtain a computer with ample CPU power and RAM
- I’m running a Ryzen 3950x with 128GB of RAM, but you could probably get by with 32GB of Ram.
- Check out the EVE Resource Calculator
- Install VMware
- https://www.vmware.com/products/workstation-player.html
- https://www.vmware.com/products/workstation-pro.html
(I’m running VMware Workstation 16 Pro)
- To install Dynamips follow a similar process.
- Purchase the version you want
- Download the files and extract
- Follow Section B below
- Navigate to the folder with the .OVA file
- Import into VMware
- Follow Section D below
- And finally follow Section G
- Why use Dynamips?
- It has most of the QCOW2 and QEMU images that you will need.
- More from the company: https://dynamips.store/why-dynamips/
- Why use Dynamips?
Installing EVE-NG:
Section A: Collect the Applications
- Open a web browser and navigate to https://www.eve-ng.net/index.php/download/#DL-COMM
- Download EVE-NG OVF under Free EVE Community Edition (currently EVE-COM-5.0.1-19 )and extract all
- Navigate to and copy <yourDevicePathToOvf>
- Download Windows Client Pack https://www.eve-ng.net/index.php/download/#DL-WIN
- Download EVE-NG Community Edition Cookbook https://www.eve-ng.net/index.php/documentation/community-cookbook/
Section B: Instantiate the VMware Virtual Machine
- Start VMware and navigate to the File menu
- Select Open and replace the default relative directory path with the one you just copied
- Press enter and select the EVE-CE.ovf or Dynamips .OVA file
- Select a name for the virtual machine and a directory
- Select import
- Adjust the allocated RAM and drive space as desired
- Power on the VM
Section C: Setup EVE-NG
- Login to the EVE CLI
- U: root
- P: eve
- You can change the password if you want, but there’s usually no need to change the default for a lab.
- Update the hostname
- Enter the DNS domain name (you can change this later if needed)
- Choose DHCP
- Leave the NTP server blank (you can change this later if needed)
- Select Direct Connection
Section D: Configure SSH in VMware & Connect Via the Terminal
- Navigate to VMware Workstation
- Right click the name of your EVE-NG VM in the left Library pane
- Hover the mouse over configure and highlight Configure SSH
- Enter your user name
- make sure the port listed is 22
- Click Save
- Ensure that your root user is not currently logged in to the EVE-NG VM
- From your favorite terminal emulator software:
- Create a connection to the IP of your EVE_NG VM
- Use port 22
- In SecureCRT use SSH2
- Enter username, password, and answer in the affirmative when and where necessary
Section E: Upgrading EVE-NG
- Login to the EVE-NG CLI with your credentials
- Verify internet connectivity of your EVE-NG box by pinging Google’s DNS server at 8.8.8.8
- If successful, run:
- # apt update
- # apt upgrade
Section F: Uploading QCOW2 & QEMU Images to EVE-NG
- If you’re using SecureCRT you have several options (you can use several methods including WinSCP):
- SFTP
- or SecureFX
- Both are nearly as easy as the other
- Both are nearly as easy as the other
- Select the EVE-NG terminal session in the Session Manager pane
- For SFTP:
- Enter ALT+P
- Use Linux commands to navigate the directories
- e.g. cd /opt/unetlab/addons/dynamips
- e.g. cd /opt/unetlab/addons/dynamips
- For SecureFX
- Enter ALT+X
- You get a GUI similar to Filezilla‘s
- Let’s start with the folder locations:
- Navigate to the appropriate folder based on the file that you’re uploading:
- Supported images for EVE are stored in the three locations:
- IOL (IOS on Linux): /opt/unetlab/addons/iol/bin/
- Dynamips images: /opt/unetlab/addons/dynamips
- Qemu images: /opt/unetlab/addons/qemu
- Supported images for EVE are stored in the three locations:
- Drag ‘n’ drop the images that you would like uploaded to the EVE-NG VM
- Navigate to the appropriate folder based on the file that you’re uploading:
- *Qemu file naming conventions:
- Are listed at https://www.eve-ng.net/index.php/documentation/qemu-image-namings/
- and on Page 152 of the EVE-NG Community Cookbook
- **Please note that both the location and the file name may need to be created or edited
Section G: Final step; logging into the web client
- Open a web browser and go to the URI specified in the VMware EVE-NG CLI where it states: “Use http://x.x.x.x/”
- Login with your credentials or try u: admin p: eve
- Select Native Terminal to use SecureCRT/your preferred local terminal emulator
- Create a new folder and a new lab
- Click on the newly created lab and then Open
- Add nodes as desired
- If the node model is greyed out you will need to follow Section F above to add the appropriate Image to EVE-NG