giantank / netlab

Making virtual networking labs suck less

Overview

netlab is bringing infrastructure-as-code concepts to networking labs. You'll describe your high-level network topology and routing design in a YAML file, and the tools in this repository will

• Create Vagrantfile configuration file for virtualbox or libvirt environment
• Create containerlab configuration file
• Create Ansible inventory and configuration file
• Create IPv4 and IPv6 addressing plan and OSPFv2, OSPFv3, EIGRP, IS-IS, and BGP routing design
• Configure IPv4, IPv6, VLANs, VRFs, VXLAN, LLDP, BFD, OSPFv2, OSPFv3, EIGRP, IS-IS, BGP, VRRP, anycast gateways, MPLS, BGP-LU, L3VPN (VPNv4 + VPNv6), 6PE, EVPN, SR-MPLS, or SRv6 on your lab devices.

Instead of wasting time creating lab topology in a GUI and configuring boring details, you'll start with a lab preconfigured according to your specifications.

Interested? Read the documentation and installation guidelines.

Releases

The latest release is release 1.5.0. We redesigned topology validation in release 1.5.0, resulting in potentially breaking changes. If you're a long-time netlab user, please read the release notes first.

The latest release before the changes made in release 1.5.0 is release 1.4.3.

An overview of tools:

netlab up : Uses netlab create to create configuration files, starts the virtual lab, and uses netlab initial to deploy device configurations. More details

netlab down : Destroys the virtual lab. More details

netlab restart : Restart and/or reconfigure the virtual lab. More details

netlab create : Creates a full-blown network topology, Vagrantfile and Ansible inventory from a simple list of nodes and links. More details

netlab initial : Using topology data generated by netlab create and default device configuration templates configures common device parameters, protocols that should have been enabled (LLDP, OSPF, IS-IS, BGP, SR-MPLS), enables interfaces, and configures IP addresses on interfaces. More details

netlab config : Applies any Jinja2 configuration templates to network devices.

netlab collect : Using Ansible fact gathering or other device-specific Ansible modules, collects device configurations and saves them in specified directory (default: config).

netlab connect : Use SSH or docker exec to connect to a lab device using device names, management network IP addresses (ansible_host), SSH port, and username/passwords from Ansible inventory. Ideal when you use centralized Vagrant environments and want to connect to the devices while being in playbook development directory.

netlab show : Display system settings in tabular format. More details