I have worked on multiple firewalls; however, the one firewall that stands out from the crowd is the Pfsense firewall. Let’s take a look at what makes the Pfsense different from other firewalls, and then we will also see how you can install a Pfsense firewall on GNS3 software and start building a basic LAB. What is a Pfsense firewall? … Read More
How To Set Static IP On Ubuntu? (GUI and CLI)
If you’re using Ubuntu Dekstop or server, and one day you decided to change the IP address of your ubuntu machine from automatic (DHCP) to static configuration. how do you achieve that? If you are using Ubuntu with GUI, it is pretty straightforward, but what if you don’t have GUI and the only option that you have is to configure … Read More
How I have setup my GNS3?| 10 Easy steps.
I have seen some of my friends and colleagues who are struggling to get their GNS3 up and running with no issues at all. Sometime they call me and say, Saif can you please take a look, it is not working! The problem with GNS3 is that after you get everything working and the next day when you come back … Read More
How To Install And Configure SNMP on Ubuntu?
If there is no SNMP protocol, monitoring the Network hosts would have been difficult tasks for the admins. SNMP is a protocol that helps you identify the host availability with many parameters such as network health, hardware resources such as CPU utilization, memory storage, etc. In this blog, let’s discuss how to configure SNMP on an Ubuntu server and specific … Read More
What Is VXLAN? The Difference Between Overlay And Underlay
When I first heard about VXLAN I asked my colleague, what is VXLAN? And his answer was it is the same as VLAN but with X in the middle :).It is such a protocol that is difficult to comprehend for many. Table of content: What is Vxlan used for? What is the difference between VLAN and VXLAN? What is a … Read More
How To Take VM Snapshots In KVM?
When I started to work with KVM, I used to ask myself a question How do I backup and restore a KVM VM?, or How do I revert my virtual machine to its old state, when things go wrong while I am making some changes. In the beginning, I used to copy the image from default libvirt default directory /var/log/libvirt/images/vm.qcow2 … Read More
How To Install And Configure Palo Alto In GNS3?
When you wanted to build and practice Paloalto lab, you have got multiple options. You could try physical gears if you can afford one, else virtualize them. Does gns3 support Palo alto? In this blog, we will configure the Paloalto firewall in gns3 with management IP and one public-facing interface connecting to the internet. The Palo alto firewall works perfectly … Read More
How To Install Checkpoint Firewall In Gns3?
You wanted to work with firewall, mainly the checkpoint firewalls, but you don’t know where to begin with and no prior experience with firewalls either, then you are in the right place. Even if you have experience with the firewall but just wanted to spin up the lab in GNS3, that’s fine too. In this blog, I will cover how … Read More
How To Connect GNS3 Devices To The Local Machine?
I have covered many blogs on how you can install a network device in gns3. However, sometimes the challenge is to get the gns3 devices to talk to the local network or your host PC. If you get that setup, you can access the network device GUI from your local machine browser or ssh from it. Let’s look at how … Read More
Palo Alto Firewall Lab Setup-Allow Inside Users To The Internet
When I started my Paloalto firewall journey, it wasn’t easy. I am from a network routing and switching background, and initially, when I had a chance to work with Palo alto firewall, I was a little hesitant. Eventually, I set up the Palo alto firewall lab and started to practice. Slowly I began to get the hang of it. After … Read More
10 Easy Steps To Install Windows Server in Linux KVM
You wanted to install the windows 2019 server on a hypervisor and the option that you have right now is to use the QEMU KVM hypervisor. Then you are in the right place. And when it comes to virtualization I love KVM, as it is Open-source and free too. Whenever I had to choose between hypervisors I would always prefer … Read More
5 Easy Steps To Configure SNMP on Redhat Linux or CentOS
The other day I was working on adding some of the Redhat servers in to production for monitoring. I also got the SNMP community string from the team who is managing the monitoring tools as well. I was so confident that I even informed them that I would configure the SNMP on the server in another 5 mins :). Do … Read More
How To Connect Your VM To The VPN?
In some of my last blogs, I wrote about how you can install Virtual machines on different hypervisors such as KVM, VMware, VirtualBox, etc. I use the windows machine as a daily driver Virtual Machine on my Ubuntu box; having the choice of both operating systems at a time is excellent. And I can switch between them any time I … Read More
Useful KVM commands
In the last few blogs, I covered how you can install different Operating systems in a KVM host. But some of you are wondering I got this guest OS installed but how do I manage it. In this blog, let’s take a look at some of the useful KVM command line commands which you can run on the terminal. The … Read More
Nuage NSG bootstrapping – Activation of NSG at the branch – Part 7
Even though we have virtual Nuage NSG, let’s think for a second that we have got a brand new NSG’s at our branch locations and we are going to deploy them as Branch 1 and two like below. 🙂 Creation of NSG in an Enterprise. Different methods of bootstrapping Nuage NSG. What is Auto-bootstrapping NSG bootstrapping using auto bootstrap. Nuage … Read More
How to create Bridge and Vlan’s in Linux – Nuage SD-WAN lab Part – 2
What is the underlay and Overlay network? When it comes to Nuage-SDWAN there are two types of networks that we have to use. First one is called the underlay network and the second one is called the overlay network. The underlay network is nothing but our traditional network which would help us to connect all the network equipment. Once the … Read More
Nokia Nuage SD-WAN Lab- Nuage VSD installation steps – Part 3
In my previous blog, I covered the underlay network setup for Nuage in KVM. In this blog, I am going to cover the Nuage VSD installation lab guide and on the next part of the blog, we would go through the installation of the nuage components one by one. What is Nuage VSD (Virtual Service Directory) Nuage VSD or Nokia … Read More
Nuage SD-WAN Controller (VSC) deployment – Part 4
In our last section of the Nuage sdwan lab setup, we had installed VSD, which is the nuage networks VNS management plane. In this section of the lab guide, we would go ahead and install a SD-WAN controller known as VSC (Virtual Service Controller.) Wha is Nuage VSC ? VSC is the Nuage SDN’s controller, which guide or inform the data … Read More
How To Install Windows 10 on Ubuntu KVM?
I love Ubuntu, especially when I wanted to work with python programming, But I also love windows 10 because of its GUI and the vast variety of software support. In the last blog, I covered how you can install windows 10 on Centos/Redhat KVM. But in this tutorial I going to cover the Debian derivative Ubuntu. And the steps mentioned … Read More
4 Easy steps to download the windows 10 ISO image.
Many people asked me lately where can they get the windows 10 iso image, and in this blog I am going to show you how you can downloads windows 10 iso image directly from Microsoft. Note : Though you can download the image for free, you will have to use your own license key later on. Prerequisite Good internet connection. … Read More
How To Install Windows 10 In VMware Workstation?
When you wanted to test something in your machine its better to use a virtual environment. you can play around with the machine and even if you mess up something with the virtual machine, you can still restore them. Since the VM environment and the physical host environment is separate, whatever you do on the VM environment stays at the … Read More
How to find ILO License key already installed – 10 easy Steps.
Have you ever thought you would wanted to take a backup of the ilo license key and you are unable to find the key using neither ILO CLI console nor ILO GUI ? and Ended up seeing the key like below with just 4 characters of the license shown ? Activation Key xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-ABCDE Then you are not alone, many people … Read More
Setup Hpe comware or MSR in gns3 and Telnet to Putty.
Most of the network engineers whom I know have worked with mainly Cisco gears and not Hpe Comeware devices, Including myself 🙂 And my transition wouldnt been easier if there was no GNS3. To get familiar with the Comware devices, what I have done is.. I have downloaded and installed Hpe VSR to my gns3. After that it was just … Read More
How To Install Ubuntu Desktop On KVM?
I have a CentOS machine but there are times I would wanted to switch from CentOS to Ubuntu, how do I do that ? You can have a dual boot with both the Centos and the Ubuntu but if you wanted to switch from Centos to Ubuntu then you would have to shut down the Centos and during the boot … Read More
How to configure HSRP/GLBP/VRRP?
Let me start off by showing some real-life scenarios, and then we can understand where do we use HSRP, GLBP, and VRRP and their differences then we will fix the network. Instead of showing some labs right away. So let’s begin. We have Customer A , they are using a simple network topology as below. A router that is connected … Read More
10 Easy steps to install CentOS 7/8 on VMware workstation
I have covered few blog posts in the past about installing VM’s such as Centos, Ubuntu, Windows on different hypervisors. However, installation of CentOS 8 on vmware workstation was totally different story. When the CentOS 8 came out I thought let me spin up the CentOS 8 on my VMware workstation. Guess what ?, The installation didn’t succeed. during the … Read More
Creation of Nuage SD-WAN gateway (NSG) in VSD – Part 6
How you install the traditional network devices?A skilled technician would go on to the site to deploy the router and connect cables on them and make sure everything is working.But how to implement SD-WAN gateway? You cannot install SD-WAN gateway in our case NSG (Network Service Gateway) just like that. You would have to do a process called NSG bootstrapping … Read More
Nuage Proxy server deployment – SDWAN lab -Part 5
Yes, we are almost there to get everything up and run.! I am building this lab for you guys and at the same time, writing this post, that way I hope everything would be accurate. In this lab, we are going to install the Nuage proxy server, also known as nuage utility VM, so let’s get started. Why Nuage SD-WAN … Read More
How do I enable SSH on Ubuntu?
There are few features that are not available out of the box in Ubuntu. One such feature is SSH. If you ever install Ubuntu on your machine and expect the ssh to work by default, it doesn’t. You would get an error message that says ‘The remote system refused the connection’ Also if you try to open winscp on your local machine and … Read More
5 easy Steps to change the display resolution in Linux
When you install Redhat Linux enterprise or a CentOS on a server, by default, it takes the display resolution as 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768. Also, when you go to display settings and try to modify the display resolution, you would be disappointed to see that there are no options available to increase the display resolution either from … Read More
