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So another appliance in GNS3 are
QEMU appliances and this seems to be
the future and seems to be the recommendation.
So could you tell us is that true
and you know what are QEMU devices?
So QEMU is an emulator, so now most of the
modern appliances run on QEMU, so all the,
for instance, all the VIRL images, they run on QEMU.
So I mean, there's a whole bunch of these, and we using...
Like ASAv, NX-OSv, XRv, all the virtual appliances
from CISCO from VIRL, they need QEMU to work.
And you recommend, like, if you want
a router image you should use IOSv...
IOSV, if you want a switch IOSvL2, firewall, ASAv...
And then like Nexus, NX-OSv Nexus, NX-OSv, yeah.
But all of this comes from, From VIRL, yes.
From VIRL, but is QEMU only VIRL or is it other...
No, it's also many other vendors like Juniper.
So the Junos devices. Like the vMX appliance.
SRX and those kind of devices.
SRX, there are also like, vendors like Fortinet,
they have appliances that work on QEMU.
And Cumulus, all those guys--
Cumulus to Altonex, BestGuide,
they have appliances that run on QEMU.
So the future is QEMU? The future is QEMU, yes.
For these big devices from vendors.
So Dynamips is the past, the future is QEMU?
Dynamips is the past, it was only CISCO only.
And then the future would be QEMU devices?
Yeah
So, I'm gonna wrap it in here
because it causes a lot of confusion:
How is this different to IOU devices?
So, IOU is a CISCO-only product,
it's only for CISCO employees,
and you need a license to use it.
So you have to download a license
or get it somewhere and install it.
Yes, yeah.
But I mean, the big problem here is that
it's for CISCO employees only.
It's for CISCO employees only,
it's not distributed by CISCO.
It's not a public distribution.
It's not a public distribution, we just support it,
but it's up to our users to provide IOU, IOU images.
And it's the same here, so I mean,
the question I always get is, "How do I get these images?"
So if they want these CISCO images,
they need to buy a VIRL license...
Yes.
And then they would download the images,
and then they'd be able to import them into GNS3?
Yeah.
So this is the recommended route.
This is the recommended way, the legal way to do it.
We know some of our users can
find the images on the internet...
But it's not recommended?
We don't recommend that, we're just providing
the platform to run those images,
we don't really check where you find those images.
Yeah, I mean, just to say, re-iterate this,
it's not our responsibility to make sure
that you're legally compliant.
GNS3 provides this framework, but you've gotta make sure
that you're doing things right.
Yeah.
So Jeremy, I've seen this a lot,
when I download an appliance, from the GNS3 Marketplace,
like I go onto GNS3's website, and I go to the Marketplace,
Appliances, and I download an appliance,
a lot of those appliances are
QEMU appliances aren't they? Yes.
Do QEMU appliances or can QEMU appliances
run on a local installation, so like if I'm running Windows,
can they run locally or do they have to run in the VM?
No, most of them have to run in a VM,
however, from version 2.2,
we support a technology called HAXM.
HAXM, yeah, what is that?
Which is, this is basically
a nested virtualisation support on Windows, for QEMU.
So in theory, you could run QEMU directly on Windows?
Yes, in theory, however, for instance,
I tried like IOSv, it doesn't work,
so it's more like experimental,
but you can definitely run like Linux in QEMU
on Windows using this technology.
So this is a new thing from 2.2?
This is a new thing, yes.
Okay, so, in the future, would the way
to do things be running it locally
or do you see everything going to the VM?
I think I would still recommend the VM,
because this is, as I said, this is experimental,
and it may or may not improve.
Maybe someday we can run IOSv directly on Windows,
but I think the safest way is to assume
that you will have to use a VM, the Gen3 VM.
That's great, so I mean, just to re-iterate for
everyone's benefit, QEMU devices are the way of the future,
specifically with CISCO with the VIRL images.
Yeah. Great.
So Jeremy, just before we cut off this,
let's talk about this device, because the one
that seems to still cause a lot of issues
or a lot of questions is this.
Guys want to run ASA 8. Yes, so?
Do you recommend that? No we don't recommend this.
Because it's unstable, lots of our users
run into issues trying to run ASA 8,
it may work, it may not work, there's infinite loops,
it crashes, so we recommend ASAv,
because ASAv is a lot more stable, it's a more recent image.
So yes, go for ASAv when you want to run ASA firewalls.
So CISCO ASAv is the way that you should do it
any kind of firewall, forget about this.
Yeah, forget about ASA 8.
Will you remove it from GNS3?
I think we'll keep it there,
because I know some users want to run
something I call multi-context.
Yeah, multi-context, yeah.
And only ASA 8 supports multi-context.
And this doesn't yet? It doesn't, no.
At the moment, yet? At the moment, yeah.
Okay so, not recommended, but again,
like you said with other technologies, use at your own risk.
Yes. But you can't help them?
No we can't support ASA 8, too many problems.
Too many issues? Too many issues, yeah.
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