Software Installation and Lab Setup

It’s easiest to use the BGP labs with netlab. Still, you can use most of them (potentially with slightly reduced functionality) with any other virtual lab environment or on physical gear. For the rest of this document, we’ll assume you decided to use netlab; if you want to set up your lab in some other way, read the Manual Setup document.

Select the Network Devices You Will Work With

FRRouting devices can be run in all netlab-supported virtualization environments (Docker containers or KVM/libvirt virtual machines), and if you want to start practicing BGP with minimum hassle, consider using them for all lab devices.

If you’d like to use a more traditional networking device, use any other netlab-supported device for which we implemented basic BGP configuration as the device to practice with¹. I recommend Arista cEOS or Nokia SR Linux containers; they are the easiest ones to install and use.

Select the Additional Devices in Your Lab

The labs heavily rely on external BGP feeds – preconfigured devices with which your routers exchange routing information. You won’t configure those devices, but you might have to log into them and execute show commands.

It’s best if you use FRR containers or virtual machines for external BGP feeds, but you can choose any one of these devices⁴:

Environment	Devices that can be used as external BGP feeds2
Containers (clab)	Arista EOS, FRR, Nokia SR Linux3
Virtual machines (libvirt)	Arista EOS, Aruba AOS-CX, Cisco IOSv, Cisco IOS-XE, FRR
ARM (Apple) CPU	Arista EOS, FRR, or SR Linux containers

Select the Virtualization Environment

Now that you know which network device to use, check which virtualization environment you can use. I prefer containerlab over libvirt (containers usually start faster), but that’s just me.

Everything else being equal, I’d create a Ubuntu VM on Windows or MacOS (including Macs with Apple silicon) to run netlab. You could also invest in a tiny brick of densely-packed silicon (example).

A gotcha: your hardware and virtualization software (for example, VirtualBox or VMware Fusion) must support nested virtualization if you want to use libvirt on that Ubuntu VM. You don’t need nested virtualization to run Docker containers unless you’re using the crazy trick we’re forced to use for Aruba AOS-CX, most Cisco platforms, Junos, or Nokia SR OS – they’re running as a virtual machine within a container.

Software Installation

Based on the choices you made, you’ll find the installation instructions in one of these documents:

• Using GitHub Codespaces
• Ubuntu VM Installation on Windows or MacOS
• Ubuntu Server Installation
• Running netlab on any other Linux Server
• Running netlab in a Public Cloud
• Running netlab on Apple silicon

Once you have completed the software installation, you have to deal with the stupidities of downloading and installing network device images (libvirt, containers) unless you decided to use FRR, Nokia SR Linux, or Vyos.

I would love to simplify the process, but the networking vendors refuse to play along. Even worse, their licenses prohibit me from downloading the images and creating a packaged VM with preinstalled network devices for you⁵. Fortunately, you only have to go through this colossal waste of time once.

Setting Up the Labs

We finally got to the fun part – setting up the labs. If you’re not using GitHub Codespaces:

• Select a directory where you want to have the BGP labs
• Clone the bgplab GitHub repository with git clone https://github.com/bgplab/bgplab.git. GitHub UI gives you other options in the green Code button, including Download ZIP

After you get a local copy of the repository:

• Change the directory to the top directory of the cloned repository⁶.
• Verify the current project defaults with the netlab defaults --project command⁷:

$ netlab defaults --project
device = frr (project)
groups.external.device = frr (project)
provider = clab (project)

• If needed, change the project defaults to match your environment with the netlab defaults --project _setting_=_value_ command or edit the defaults.yml file with a text editor like vi or nano. For example, use these commands to change your devices to Cisco CSRs running as virtual machines⁸:

$ netlab defaults --project device=csr
The default setting device is already set in project defaults
Do you want to change that setting in project defaults [y/n]: y
device set to csr in /home/user/BGP/defaults.yml

$ netlab defaults --project provider=libvirt
The default setting provider is already set in netlab,project defaults
Do you want to change that setting in project defaults [y/n]: y
provider set to libvirt in /home/user/BGP/defaults.yml

• In a terminal window, change the current directory to one of the lab directories (for example, basic/1-session), and execute netlab up.
• Wait for the lab to start and use netlab connect to connect to individual lab devices
• Have fun.
• When you’re done, collect the device configurations with netlab collect (if you want to save them) and shut down the lab with netlab down
• Change the current directory to another lab directory and repeat.
• Once you run out of lab exercises, create a new one and contribute it with a pull request ;)