1) Will Cisco provide any sort of discount for renewing an active VIRL PE license?

Not at this time. Learning@Cisco also provides discounts on VIRL PE licenses from time to time. Follow
us on one of our social media accounts for announcements about future discounts:
https://twitter.com/CiscoVIRL, https://www.facebook.com/cisco.virl/

2) After sitting through multiple 1 hour+ long rehosts this week - thank you SO much for making it
quicker!

You're welcome! We've been wanting to make this change for quite some time, and we're happy that
we're finally releasing this fix to our users.

3) Will you demo setting this up on bare-metal as well?

Not in today's webinar. The key change in the 1.5 release is that when you first boot your installed
system, you'll need to go through the "first install" wizard that Brian demonstrated in today's
webinar. Otherwise, the bare metal install should be similar to the way it was in the
past. http://get.virl.info/iso.bm.php

4) Can you talk about installing VIRL PE on ESXi?

We did not plan to talk about anything specific to ESXi in today's webinar. For ESXi installation
instructions, see http://get.virl.info/vs.client.php or http://get.virl.info/vs.web.php.

5) Will there be any webinar in future to explain how we can use VIRL to its optimum performance and
connect virtually to external networks? Those sort of things to give us an additional insight.

For users running in a memory-constrained system, see the part of today's webinar about enabling the
KSM module on your VIRL PE installation. Depending on your system and the topologies that you need
to simulate, we believe that enabling the KSM module will enable you to run more nodes in your
simulations with little other impact. The KSM module is not enabled by default because we want to
gather feedback from users who enable the option in VIRL PE 1.5 before we decide whether to enable it
by default in future releases.

We're planning to host VIRL webinars more frequently again. Let us know what you'd like to see, and
we'll add it to our list of ideas for future webinars.

6) Hi what are salt masters?

VIRL PE uses SaltStack to install and configure your VIRL PE system, provide software and VM image
updates, and verify your license. The "salt masters" are part of our back-end infrastructure. From the
perspective of a VIRL PE user, the salt masters are a combination license server and package repository.

7) I guess i missed the intro part :(

No problem! We always post the video and consolidate Q&A of the VIRL PE webinars. See the webinar
playlist on the CiscoVIRL YouTube channel or, for the full content of the more recent webinars, the CLN
VIRL Training Videos.

8) When will the VIRL PE 1.5 release be available?

We're still wrapping up testing. After the webinar, we found a bug with the upgrade process from VIRL
PE 1.3 to 1.5. We're now retesting with that fix. Assuming that we don't find any new problems, we
currently plan to release this week (i.e., week ending on March 10).

9) Will CML1.5 be available for download at the same time as VIRL PE 1.5?

No, CML 1.5 will not be available until a few weeks after VIRL PE 1.5 is available.

10) Today's webinar demonstrated changes to the underlying infrastructure and install process. Is there
anything new that is "VM Mastro facing" that we can see in the product day-to-day?

There are no major new features, but there are a fair number of bug fixes across the product. For
example, in VM Maestro, we've added a menu item to permit users to add unconnected interfaces to a
node, restoring a capability that was lost when expandable nodes in the main topology editor replaced
the node editor. Other VM Maestro bug fixes include correcting the "snap to grid" behavior, fixing a bug
that caused names of pasted nodes to be shuffled after a copy-and-paste operation, and ensuring that
topology file validation does not stop after finding an error.

11) The previous release was VIRL 1.3. What happened to version 1.4?

We had to skip the "1.4" version number. The reason is boring and related to some internal red tape:
we had to tie the 1.4 release for an internal process that is unrelated to our external release schedule.

12) Are there technical differences between versions?

Some of the larger changes are being demonstrated during the webinar. For a full list of bug fixes and
updates, see the release notes for the 1.5 release. When VIRL PE version 1.5 is released, the release
notes will be added to the VIRL Release Notes Index.

13) Plans for next release ?

While we don't like to talk too early about the future development, we are looking at some key
capabilities and extensions that have been in the request queue, with a goal to get back on a more
regular release cycle.

14) Is there any trial version these days?

No. There is no trial license for VIRL PE. If you have a Cisco account manager, they can give you trial
access to a VIRL PE instance in dCloud.

15) Are the RAM requirements changing for the new release?

No. The minimum system requirements and memory requirements for the bundled reference platforms
are similar to VIRL PE 1.3. Note that, especially in cases where your topology includes multiple nodes
that use the same VM image, enabling the KSM option for your VIRL PE installation, as demonstrated
during the webinar, should provide a reduction in the overall memory consumption of your topology.

16) How suitable is VIRL for CCNP RS and CCNP SP lab work in terms of support/unsupported
functionality tested on these certifications?

While we do not have a detailed chart of VIRL PE's features versus the blueprints of the CCNP or CCIE
blueprints, we know that VIRL PE and the bundled Cisco reference platform VM images provide support
for most of the CCIE SP and CCIE RS blueprints. In fact, the CCIE SP labs are basically running on VIRL PE
already. For CCNP RS and CCIE RS, VIRL PE supports most of the functionality you need. The biggest
feature gap for the R&S blueprints is probably support for serial interfaces. The Cisco router VMs used
by VIRL PE do not provide serial interfaces. If you need to study those topics, you would have to
supplement your VIRL PE lab with some other option.

17) Is the VIRL 1-year subscription OS-dependent ? I mean, can I download it on macOS and bare-metal
using the same subscription ?
No, it's not. The license is tied to you and not to any particular VIRL installation, hardware, or operating
system. You may move your VIRL installation to a different machine or switch deployment type (bare
metal to VMware ESXi, for example) at any time. There's no need to request permission or ask for a new
license. The same license may be used on any deployment type. You may only have a single VIRL
installation running at any one time. Make sure that once you have moved your VIRL installation, the
original deployment of VIRL is shutdown or removed. Failure to to do so risks VIRL EULA violation and
license revocation.

18) Any plan to bring back the 30-node license or to provide a way to increase the node limit beyond 20
nodes?
19) Has the VIRL PE Academic edition been completely removed? Is there any way to get special pricing
for students, faculty, and staff of accredited K-12 to higher education institutions, for military personnel,
or for use in a class offered at such an institution?

We are re-structuring the product and where it fits in the Learning @ Cisco portfolio. Our product
manager is looking at the product offerings, and new options for node count and academic licensing are
being considered.

For users who need to run a topology with more than 20 Cisco nodes, another option is to run a VIRL PE
instance on Packet.net servers, where your node limit is currently doubled. You may use your 20-node
VIRL PE license to run VIRL on a Packet.net server, and the license will provide a 40-node limit when
used on the Packet.net VIRL PE instance. For this option, see http://get.virl.info/packet.php and the
recording of the VIRL September 2017 Webinar: Deploy VIRL PE onto Packet.net's bare-metal cloud
platform.

20) Is VIRL PE going to add back in multi-user support like in 1.2, or is it strictly going to be single?

VIRL PE 1.5 will still be single user. (Cisco Modeling Labs, of course, supports multi-user.) Our product
manager, Geoff Anderson, is evaluating the feature set for our product offerings going forward.

21) Any support for FTDv going forward ?

We do not have FTDv on our roadmap, yet. The FTDv VM is not currently bundled with VIRL PE.

If you have access to the FTDv VM, you may find this blog post useful:
https://ciscoskills.net/2017/06/14/cisco-ftdv-in-cisco-virl/.
22) Do you have VxLAN / OTV available on Nexus Image or on the Roadmap?

VIRL PE provides access two different reference platform images based on NX-OS.

• NX-OSv is based on the NX-OS code for the Nexus 7000 platform. There are currently no plans to add
features to the NX-OSv image: see https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-30470.
• NX-OSv 9000, a.k.a. Nexus 9000v, is based on the NX-OS code for the Nexus 9000 platform. NX-OSv
9000 is not bundled with VIRL PE by default, but you can install it on your system via the VIRL Server
> VIRL Software page in VIRL PE's User Workspace Manager (UWM). For more information on NX-
OSv 9000 in VIRL PE, see https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-31789.

As shown in the feature support tables in those documents, OTV is not supported by the current
versions of NX-OSv or NX-OSv 9000. The NX-OSv 9000 image available to VIRL PE users supports VXLAN
"Flood and Learn; BGP EVPN without ARP suppression."

23) Will you be adding support for serial links? I still have some serial projects I would like to simulate. /
How can user get serial links added to your roadmap?

VIRL PE 1.5 does not add support for serial interfaces. Unfortunately, it's not possible for us to support
serial interfaces within the current architecture and with the VM images we're currently permitted to
distribute. All of the Cisco reference platform images that VIRL PE bundles run as qemu-kvm virtual
machines, and the hypervisor basically exposes all interfaces on the VM as GigE Ethernet interfaces. We
continue to keep serial interface support on our VIRL PE "requested features" list, but it is not currently
on our roadmap.

24) Any plans to incorporate the ACI/APIC environment into VIRL? will ACI Mode be included in version
1.5 VIRL?

No, not currently. The NX-OSv 9000 VM does not support running in ACI mode.

You'd also need an ACI controller, which has a very large resource footprint. These types of images are
so huge that it does not make a lot of sense to include them or run them inside of a VM even if they
would support it. Even if you could, you probably wouldn't want to run them within a VIRL network
simulation. From an operational point of view, you often want to preserve the state of the APIC-EM
database, for example, across restarts of the network simulation. With the way VIRL PE works today, it
makes the most sense to run the APIC-EM controller outside of VIRL PE itself. Then you can use VIRL
PE's "external connectivity" features to connect the controller to network simulations that are running
inside of your VIRL PE instance.

We continue to keep an eye on what Cisco is doing in this space to evaluate whether there's an
opportunity for more/better integration with VIRL PE.

25) Can you integrate ACI/APIC enviroment via a virtual Machine network running on the same
machine?

Yes. That is the recommended approach for running this type of environment with VIRL PE today. See
the answer to the previous question.

26) Is IOL included in VIRL PE 1.5? Have you abandoned the possible inclusion of IOL images to reduce
host resource requirements?

No, VIRL PE 1.5 will not include IOL. We have not abandoned the effort to get approval to distribute IOL
with a future VIRL PE release.

27) Is VXLAN and OTV supported with new version?

If you're talking about NX-OSv 9000, VXLAN is supported. OTV is not currently supported. See also the
"software functionality" tables in the Nexus 9000v Guide.

28) How are we looking on the VPC and Etherchannel services?

VPC has been supported by the NX-OSv 9000 images since version 7.0(3)I6(1). Therefore, if you have
been using NX-OSv 9000 in VIRL PE 1.3, VPC should have been supported since August 2017.

29) Is there support for VxLan using PIM in ver 1.5 please?

VIRL PE 1.5 includes access to NX-OSv 9000 version 7.0(3)I7(1). It supports VXLAN but not PIM. From
the Nexus 9000v Guide:

• "L2 Switching Multicast - Supported as Broadcast (not explicit Mcast) , No PIM or Mcast Group
support"
• "VXLAN - Supported (Flood and Learn); BGP EVPN without ARP suppression in Cisco NX-OS Release
7.0(3)I6(1) and later."
30) Can I run a Docker container in VIRL?

Yes, you can. Docker containers are a node type you can integrate into a topology. See, for example,
Docker on VIRL - Integrated Docker containers into your VIRL topologies or the first part of the VIRL
Personal Edition May 2016 Webinar Recording.

31) Are Windows images supported as guest VM nodes?

Under the hood, the VMs in a VIRL PE 1.5 network simulation are run using qemu-kvm version 2.5 on
Ubuntu Linux. Any VM that runs on KVM as the hypervisor should work within VIRL PE. We have
collected information from the Cisco VIRL community on how to run third-party VMs in VIRL PE, which
includes instructions for running a Windows 7 VM.

32) I have never used IOSv, is it exactly the same as a regular IOS image ?

Not quite. It is built from the same source code as the regular IOS images, but it does not support
anything other than GigabitEthernet interfaces, for example.

VIRL PE does not emulate any specific hardware platform, and you cannot run an IOS image that was
built for a real router in VIRL PE. Instead VIRL PE runs special builds of Cisco's operating systems that are
designed to run as virtual machines. Cisco has taken IOS, for example, cut it off at the hardware
abstraction layer, and ported it over so that it can run as a VM in a network simulation. For this reason,
features of IOS implemented entirely in software generally work exactly as they would in a device
running the same version of the operating system. This includes most of the control and management
plane features of the OS. You should see the same behavior and the same bugs found on the associated
version. IOS features that are executed on the hardware (ASIC) may not be supported unless Cisco has
added a software-based implementation of the feature. The layer-2 switch image (IOSvL2) in VIRL PE is
an example where features implemented on an ASIC have been re-implemented in software. The Cisco
virtual machines bundled with VIRL PE are "demo" images that do not require any additional licensing,
but they are rate-limited with no sense of a synchronized CPU clock across the system. This is
virtualization, not emulation. Therefore, VIRL PE is very good for troubleshooting policy and
configuration issues of supported features, but it's not generally useful for testing throughput or timing.

33) Is there an image we can use to simulate ISR router (the latest and greatest). I mean an image that
we could run on a significant of virtual routers without taking much resources. It looks like the ISR
images (linux base) are taking more resources than IO.
The only Cisco VM that is currently bundled with VIRL PE and that runs IOS-XE is the
CSR1000v. Unfortunately, the CSR1000v's nominal resource requirements are 1 vCPU core and 3 GB of
vRAM. In terms of resource usage, the smallest router images bundled with VIRL PE are IOSv and
IOSvL2.

34) Is there any way to sim an IOS-XE switch?

The only image bundled with VIRL PE that runs IOS-XE is the CSR1000v. VIRL PE 1.5 will come bundled
with the CSR1000v 16.6.1 image.

35) I'm looking to lab some flex-link configs for an upcoming project, which doesn't seem to be
supported on CSR1000v (e.g., no 'switchport' commands are available). Are there any other options to
simulate these features?

Probably not. You could try it with IOSvL2 switch image, but we know that the original version of IOSvL2
that VIRL PE included did not support flexlink. The IOSvL2 image has been updated since then, but we
have not checked that feature with the more recent versions.

While some of the Nexus switches support flexlink, we do not believe that it is supported in the NX-OSv
image in VIRL PE. We don't have confirmation one way or the other for the NX-OSv 9000 image.

If you give it a try with either IOSvL2 or NX-OSv 9000, let us know whether it worked for you.

36) We had issues with testing IOS XR and Nexus advanced features, is there any progress there? We
want to test label switching paths, segment routing, overlay/underlay setups in nexus.

We do not expect to see any further feature development on the NX-OSv image, but there is still active
development on the NX-OSv 9000 (aka, Nexus 9000v) image. Similarly, the IOS XRv 9000 is a more active
platform that may see some additional feature support.

The rest of the question is a little too broad to answer here. Try using NX-OSv 9000 and IOS XRv 9000,
and if the features are not working, please open a new discussion thread in the VIRL CLN Community
Forum. Provide your topology, if possible, and let us know what you tried, what you expected, and what
didn't work. Once we have a more specific example, we can involve the operating system developers to
determine whether the features are simply not supported or whether you're hitting a known bug.
37) Any new features in the IOS-XRv image, such as L2 pseudowire & bridge domains support for the
data plane; currently only the control plane works?

Not in IOS XRv. The IOS XRv 9000 images should be better in that regard. Install it from the UWM's VIRL
Server > VIRL Software page and give it a try, or start reading here:
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-30428.

38) Any updates on Nexus .. new features support etc?

NX-OSv will receive no further updates. On the other hand, we will be making an updated NX-OSv 9000
image, version 7.0.3.I7.1, available with VIRL PE 1.5.

39) Do you need a separate license to use NX-OS v9000?

No. The NX-OSv 9000 image is not bundled with VIRL PE, but you can install it via the UWM. You may
install and run it within VIRL PE without any additional license. See How to Use NX-OS 9000v with VIRL
PE.

40) What is the normal way to get Nexus 9000v for a VIRL customer? On the VIRL Download page it is
not listed. In the normal Download Center it tells me I don't have a service contract

VIRL PE still uses the old name, NX-OSv 9000, to refer to the Nexus 9000v image. It is available to all
VIRL PE users as an optional image that can be installed via the UWM. See How to Use NX-OS 9000v
with VIRL PE. Older versions of the NX-OSv 9000 image are also available for download from the
standard VIRL PE download page. Just click on the download link for your VIRL PE purchase in
https://learningnetworkstore.cisco.com/myaccount.

41) In 1.3 there is a problem with the NX-OSv 9000 image, that you cannot enable any features when
you only run it with 4 gb of memory.

If the NX-OSv 9000 VM requires additional RAM for the features you want to use, then you will have to
provide it to the VM via the flavor associated with the NX-OSv 9000 subtype. In your web browser, go to
UWM Node Resources > Flavors, and replace the NX-OSv 9000 flavor with one having 8GB RAM. The
next time you start a network simulation, your NX-OSv 9000 nodes will get the increased RAM from the
new flavor.
If you only need to provide the increased memory to specific NX-OSv 9000 nodes, you may leave the
default flavor in place and create a new flavor, such as N9000-8G-mem, matching the normal NX-OSv
9000 flavor but with 8 GB of RAM. In VM Maestro, before starting the simulation, select the nodes that
should use the larger memory allocation. Then click the Browse button for the VM Flavor in the Node
Properties view. Select your N9000-8G-mem flavor. When you launch the simulation, those nodes will
use the settings from the alternate flavor that you specified in VM Maestro.

42) So nexus 7K NEXUS is no longer in Virl 1.5 ?

NX-OSv (based on Nexus 7k) is still bundled with VIRL PE 1.5. We just don't expect that we'll get a new
version of NX-OSv with additional feature support. Work on additional NX-OS feature support is going
into NX-OSv 9000.

43) Have you sorted out the LACP bug in Nexus 9000v? source
: https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/7w9i7v/lacp_nexus_9000v_iosv_bug_fix/

It looks like that thread is talking about the same NX-OSv 9000 7.0.3.I7.1 image that will be available
with VIRL PE 1.5. Therefore, no, probably not. Was that bug also reported in the VIRL CLN Community
Forum? Or do you know an official Cisco bug number for that issue? If so, let us know, and we'll look
into it.

44) Will there be a specific procedure to add N9K images from uwmadmin into VMMaestro?

For instructions on adding NX-OSv 9000 to your VIRL PE and VM Maestro installations, see
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-31788.

45) Are security products supported in this version?

The ASAv firewall is currently the only security appliance bundled with VIRL PE.

You can, of course, import other security VMs, but you would have to configure them yourself. See, for
example, 3rd Party VMs in VIRL.

46) Is it possible to run a Cisco ISE on virl simulation?

We currently recommend running ISE outside of the network simulation. Then you can connect the ISE
VM to your network simulation running using the "external connectivity" features of VIRL PE. The ISE
VM is very large and still requires a separate (demo) license; therefore, we do not feel that it currently
makes sense to include it with VIRL PE.

47) Is SourceFire bundled in this version?

No, SourceFire is not bundled with VIRL PE 1.5.

48) Does the upgrade process in VIRL PE 1.5 show what is going on? I have had it running for 2 hours
before. No way to tell if it is really upgrading or what it is doing even clicking into that screen.

Some parts of the upgrade process have changed, but the feedback mechanism has not. The log output
will show updates after the end of each call, but some calls take longer than others. For example, during
a full upgrade, we run distupdate on the underlying Ubuntu Linux system, and it would not be
unusual for that call to take quite a long time before the command completes and displays something
new.

49) I am running 1.3 with 5 NICs active. Will I have any issues going to 1.5 on eSXi?

No. We're still testing the upgrade process, but that shouldn't cause any problems.

50) Can 1.5 be upgradable from 1.3?

Yes, we will support in-place upgrades from 1.3 to 1.5.

51) What is the advantage of using the bare-metal?

It will get you slightly better performance inside of the VMs, but the performance gains really depend on
your actual CPU and on the VM flavor / NIC version in use within the VM. Many users find that the
convenience of managing their VIRL PE installation as a VM is worth the impact on performance from
running network simulations using nested virtualization.

52) What is the recommended specs for bare-metal installations in terms of hardware ?

VIRL PE hardware requirements are pretty much the same, whether you're running VIRL PE bare metal
or as a VM. We recommend using at least 8 GB of RAM and a dual core / 4 thread CPU (dedicated to the
VIRL PE VM or as a bare metal system), but that will only permit you to simulate small IOS
topologies. More memory and CPU is required to run larger network simulations or network simulations
with more resource-intensive VMs.
53) Is 16G RAM enough to run 20 nodes? FYI, I am preparing for CCIE R&S

That depends on the type of nodes. With 16 GB of RAM dedicated to the VIRL VM, you would be able to
run a network topology with 20 IOSv nodes, but you'd need more than 2 vcpu cores available to do
that. (You can modify the CPU oversubscription within the UWM, but the maximum supported CPU
subscription is 6x.) If you're using the larger node types that require 3 GB or 4 GB of memory per node,
then 16 GB of RAM dedicated to the VIRL VM would not be sufficient to run a topology of 20 nodes of
those node types.

To compute the nominal memory requirement of a combination of different nodes, see

https://learningnetworkstore.cisco.com/virlfaq/calculator. Note that the calculator currently accounts
for the 3x vCPU over-subscription, and the value that it provides would be the number of CPU cores that
must be dedicated to the VIRL PE VM. It does not apply the 2x memory over-subscription value, and the
memory value it provides only reflects the nominal requirements of the specified nodes. On a real VIRL
PE system, assume that the baseline overhead of the operating system and software stack will be as
high as 5 GB. The memory available for simulations would be the remaining memory after that
overhead x the memory over-subscription factor (which defaults to 2).

54) Do we still need VMware Fusion on Macs? Or can we install VIRL 1.5 on Oracle VirtualBox?

You still need VMware Fusion. VirtualBox does not support nested virtualization, which VIRL PE uses to
run the virtual machines that form the simulated network within the VIRL PE VM.

55) Are there any installation gotchas for VIRL 1.5 on MAC high sierra?

No major problems. You will need to map the VMnets for the VM after deployment.

If you were using VM Maestro's support for launching external terminal applications to start the
Terminal.app and launch telnet, then you may run into a problem because OS X High Sierra does not
include telnet. You'll either need to install a third-party telnet CLI or switch to another terminal
application, like iTerm2, that provides telnet support itself.

56) What type of hardware do folks usually run VIRL on? I am trying to decide what hardware I need to
run this at home to pursue some Cisco certs. At my previous employer we ran this in an ESX
environment on server class hardware.
You can discuss the hardware that other users have for running VIRL PE on the VIRL CLN Community
Forum. For example, here are a couple of threads about building/buying a machine for running VIRL PE:

• Cisco VIRL is up and running, started tutorials

• VIRL Hosting on Home Server
• Laptop for VIRL PE

There is also some good documentation, for example, in the before I purchase section of the VIRL
Documentation Index. We generally recommend that users estimate the number and types of nodes
that they play to run in their largest topologies. Then you can use the VIRL Resource Calculator to
estimate the memory and CPU required to run VIRL PE. See also the VIRL Hardware Requirements.

57) Thanks. Can the 'uwmadmin' and 'guest' passwords be changed reliably now? I remember trying a
while ago and having issues.

Yes. They can both be changed during installation. You may no longer change these passwords via the
UWM, but after installation, you may change them by running the virl_setup script at the VIRL PE
system's console.

58) Hopefully there wont be problems with rehost as in our 1.3 deployment - changes not being applied
obviously, but gui states they are and simulations get broken :)

These kinds of problems were a big source of frustration for our users. We spent quite a bit of effort to
rework upgrades and system configuration changes to make them more robust in VIRL PE 1.5, and we
hope that these changes will address the types of problems our users were having in the past.

59) Will Virl 1.5 work with VMware Fusion 10? Importing the 1.3 OVA into Fusion 10 doesn't work is
why I ask.

Yes, we have tested VIRL PE 1.5 with VMware Fusion Pro 10, and it worked fine.

60) Will the V 1.5 work in VMware player also? Did you all fix the issue with using VM Player 14?
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/thread/120925

We continue to support running VIRL PE on VMware Fusion / Player / Workstation / ESXi, including
VMware Player 14. There was a problem with VMware Player 14 because the way nested-virtualization
is encoded has changed. We fixed this encoding issue in the VIRL PE 1.5 OVA, and it should no longer be
a problem.

61) Any plans to expand VIRL to cloud providers?

We will continue to support running VIRL PE 1.5 in Packet.net. See http://get.virl.info/packet.php.

We continue to evaluate options for running VIRL PE with other cloud providers, but we have no
immediate plans expand our support to other cloud offerings at this time. In our testing, we have found
that other popular cloud providers lack the capabilities and / or performance required to run VIRL PE.

62) On “packet.net” your VIRL license is doubled to 40 nodes! Is this right?

Yes, that is correct.

63) I have a HP DL360e Gen8 server, 5 Gig NICs, dual Intel 6 core CPUs, 96GB of RAM. How can I get
two instances to work together to get 40 nodes?

You'd have to virtualize using ESXi and run two VMs and connect them to common nets on a vSwitch.
You'd also make sure that IP addresses are unique on the VM.

64) How can I place a second instance of VIRL on my server to get 40 node limit? Can I adjust the MAC
table so I don't get duplicate MACs? / I can install a second eSXi image. How do I get the MAC address
conflict issue resolved?

If you need to adjust the allocated MAC addresses, see the UWM VIRL Server > System Configuration
pages. There is a setting there to specify the first bytes for the management MAC addresses and a prefix
(possibly just one, but different byte as well) for the random MAC addresses.

65) It looks the VIRL server needs to communicate with Cisco Salt Masters (at least). For a VIRL
installation that is running behind a firewall, which firewall ports need to be opened for a successful
installation?

Your VIRL PE installation will need outbound access to the configured salt masters on ports 4505 and
4506. (The list of salt masters for VIRL PE 1.5 will be different than the list for 1.3.)

See also the Getting Ready for VIRL document.

66) What do I miss if I run a 1-interface VIRL installation on MAC over 5-interface VIRL installation? (I
need to spend money on VMware Fusion Pro if I need a 5-interface VIRL installation.)

It really depends whether you need external connectivity. One interface is required as a management
interface for the VIRL PE system itself and to permit the UI to access the web services running on the
VIRL PE back end. The other interfaces are used for external connectivity. You can get external
connectivity with just one additional interface plus the management interface, of course.

There was an overview of external connectivity during the VIRL September 2015 Webinar. See also
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-30396 and https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-
30508.

67) Can VIRL HTTP (80) access be shutdown, to only permit https?

No, not currently. It is on our roadmap for a future release, but running only HTTPS is not supported in
VIRL PE 1.5.

68) Any API updates? so i could add a repository via the api

No. The APIs are pretty much unchanged since VIRL PE 1.2. We'd be interested in what functionality
you need that the APIs do not currently provide. Please let us know by starting a thread on the VIRL CLN
Community Forum and be sure to check the Feature Requests category when you start the thread.

69) What is the advantage of using VIRL instead of other emulation softwares such as GNS3?

We'd like people to be able to learn network engineering and get hands-on experience with new
networking technologies and features. To that end, our goal is to provide a Cisco network simulation
tool that includes Cisco reference platform virtual machine images, which do not require any additional
license when used within VIRL PE. While we are aware of other network simulation tools, our focus is
on improving VIRL PE so that it becomes the obvious best choice for network engineers who need a tool
for self-study, training, and experimentation with Cisco network technologies.

70) What benefit does VIRL provide over running multiple CSR1000v on ESX?

It depends what you're trying to do. If you have a mostly unchanging topology of CSR1000v nodes, and
you have the skills to deploy them in ESXi, then that's probably the easiest solution.
If you want a multipurpose tool for training and running "what if" experiments, then we feel that VIRL
PE has a lot to offer. With VIRL PE, it is easy to bring different topologies up and down dynamically,
either using the UI or APIs. You'll be able to network different types of router VMs, generate
configurations for new topologies quickly, start and stop nodes, start packet captures, simulate network
jitter and loss, and visualize the running network simulation right from the UI. Most of this functionality
is also exposed via the APIs and can be automated, if needed. See some of the feature videos on
http://youtube.com/CiscoVIRL for examples of many of these features.

71) I had problem with iperf which cannot run in UDP mode. IPerf is a good solution to test
effectiveness of backup (IP SLA is way to sensitive to VIRL laod).

This question doesn't provide enough detail for troubleshooting. Please open a new discussion on the
VIRL CLN Community Forum and describe what you tried, what you expected, and what failed.

72) What´s the best place to reach out if you have questions about the VIRL platform ? Is it just the Cisco
Learning Forum?

Yes, the primary technical support and community discussion forum for VIRL PE users is the VIRL CLN
Community Forum.

73) Is there a good place to see Issues with IOSv regarding bugs and things like that in VIRL? I´ve noticed
some issues with L2 features in IOSv, and I was hoping there was a list of things you should avoid doing
with IOSv or any other node type in VIRL.

We have https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/docs/DOC-30404. That lists the main supported and not

supported features. We don't currently provide a consolidated list of known bugs in each reference
platform VM that is bundled with VIRL PE. Some bugs may be mentioned in the known issues section of
the release notes.

74) I could do a capture to file thanks to "Al's" youtube video. But I could not get a live screen capture to
work. Any fix for that in 1.5?

There was a bug where VM Maestro was sometimes starting the "live packet capture" with the incorrect
port. That is, the live packet capture was started, but it was not available on the port specified within
VM Maestro. That bug has been fixed in the updated VM Maestro release for VIRL PE 1.5.
If you are having some other problem with the live packet capture, you'll need to open a discussion on
the VIRL CLN Community Forum to provide more detail.