GNS3
Builds and runs virtual networks of real router and switch images, for lab work and certification study.
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4 more ways to get GNS3
Other download sites
Run by third parties, not by GNS3 Technologies. Prefer the official page above when it works.
Package managers
- Chocolatey
choco install gns3 - Homebrew
brew install --cask gns3 - PyPI
pip install gns3-gui
About GNS3
GNS3 lets you draw a network on a canvas and then actually run it: virtual machines, Docker containers and vendor router and switch images wired together with virtual links, with real traffic passing between them. It is the standard tool for Cisco certification labs and for testing a network design before touching hardware.
Packet captures open directly in Wireshark, and you connect to devices over telnet through a terminal emulator or over VNC or SPICE for graphical ones. The architecture is a GUI plus a server, which can run on the same machine or on a bigger one elsewhere.
You supply the vendor images yourself; GNS3 does not distribute them, and the licences for those images are the vendors' business, not GNS3's.
Strengths
- Runs real vendor images, virtual machines and Docker containers in one topology
- Packet captures open directly in Wireshark
- The server can run on a separate, larger machine than the interface
- The standard lab tool for network certification study
Limitations
- You must supply vendor router and switch images yourself, with their own licences
- Large topologies need substantial CPU and memory
- Setup involves a GUI, a server and often a virtual machine, which is fiddly
- The macOS build is Intel only
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source under the GPL. Vendor router and switch images are licensed separately and are not distributed with it.
- License
- GPL-3.0
- Developer
- GNS3 Technologies
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Building a lab network from real device images before you build it for real
- Categories
- Network tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Selected from the TechWalrus downloads catalog (Network); facts checked against the developer's own pages, 3 sources on file.
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