14 Making GNS3 Portable

GNS3 is designed for large corporations running it on a server. These corporations build their entire infrastructure on the GNS3 platform and analyze its performance before deploying the real-world configurations. We are using GNS3 on a desktop, which limits the number of devices we can deploy in our environment. However, it also makes the GNS3 environment portable. You might have multiple environments (home desktop, school desktop, and laptop) that you want to move your GNS3 environment between. This chapter will explain how to make your GNS3 environment portable.

Learning Objectives

• Successfully migrate your GNS3 environment to a portable drive
• Successfully migrate your GNS3 environment to your local system.

Prerequisites

• Chapter 2 – Setting up a GNS3 environment
• Chapter 6 – Adding a Virtual Machine to GNS3

Deliverables

• None – this is for learners who want to make their GNS3 environment portable

Resources

• https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/usb-3-0-speed.html
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/client-tools/change-default-removal-policy-external-storage-media
• https://usbdeview.com/

Contributors and Testers

Alec Parish, Student, ERAU

1. The first thing to do is to check your system parameters:
   
   1. Starting with Windows 10, the default policy for removing USB drives has been set to “quick remove.” This policy remains in Windows 11. If you need to improve your USB performance, you can change the policy to “better performance”. However, do not forget to use the Windows “Safely Remove Hardware” process, or all your drive data could be lost! Windows default media removal policy | Microsoft Learn
      
   2. Use the most current drivers for your portable storage device
   3. Convert the file system on the portable drive to NTFS
2. Check the speed of your device using a USB speed tester such as MiniTool Partition Wizard https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/usb-3-0-speed.html or https://usbdeview.com/
   1. USBDeview instructions
      1. Download the app from https://usbdeview.com/
      2. Navigate to your downloads and extract all the files
      3. Click on the USBDeview application to start it
      4. Find the USB device in the list of devices

         NOTE: Plug your device in and then out to see what has changed. That is your USB device

          

         

      5.  Right-click the USB drive and select Speed Test
         

         

      6. Press the “Start Test” button
         

         

   2. MiniTool Partition Wizard
      1. Download the tool from https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/usb-3-0-speed.html
      2. Double-click on the pw-demo application in your downloads to install and start the program
         

         

      3.  Select the thumb drive, then click on Disk Benchmark
         1. Change the transfer size from 32 KB to 128 KB
            

            

         2. Press “Start”
3. The benchmark MUST BE at least 300 MBps for reading chunks of 128MB of data to achieve non-laggy speeds
   

   

    

   

• • • Dr. Heath Van Horn uses a motherboard’s M2 SSD Hard Drive mounted in a USB 3.2 enclosure, which turns the SSD into a thumb drive. This setup offers ample storage but is limited by the maximum USB 3 speeds. However, unlike other USB drives, the M2 Drive consistently exceeds the 300 Mbps threshold.
      

      

       

      However, unlike other USB drives, the M2 Drive consistently exceeds the 300 Mbps threshold.

1. Install the GNS3 VM (Chapter 2) as you usually would
2. Insert your portable drive
3. Create folders on the portable drive:
   1. projects
   2. configs
   3. appliances
   4. symbols (if you use anything not provided by GNS3 defaults)
4. Clone the GNS3 VM to the portable drive
   1. Right-click on the GNS3 VM and select clone
      

      

   2. Change the VM’s name to something meaningful. We used “GNS3 VM Portable.” Select the removable drive in the path, then hit “Next.”
      

      

   3. Select “Full Clone” then hit “Finish”
      

      

5. Configure GNS3 on each PC you want to use in the portable environment
   1. Start GNS3 and close the project Window. Please do not open a project, we have some settings to modify and will have to restart
      1. Select Edit –> Preferences
         

         

      2. You can change the general preferences to folders on the portable drive
         

         

      3. Change the GNS3 VM to the clone we created on the portable drive

         NOTE: VMs will only show the VMs within the local VirtualBox manager. This will become more important later.

          

         

      4. Press “Apply”
      5. Restart GNS3 for the changes to take effect
6. So long as you apply the above steps to every PC or laptop you intend to use with your portable environment, you can keep every project, VM, and appliance on the portable device. Essentially, you can have your work product anywhere you are working

1. Ensure compatibility between the new PC and the one you use. Nothing will work if these versions are different
   1. GNS3 base environment must be the same version
   2. VirtualBox 7.0.x is installed
2. Navigate to your portable USB drive
3. Double-click on the  GNS3 Portable VirtualBox Machine file to import it into the new PC’s VirtualBox manager
   

   

   NOTE: Repeat the double-click import for every VM stored on the thumb drive.  This action will open a new instance of VirtualBox Manager, leaving you with several running instances. After importing every VM, close them all and restart the VirtualBox Manager to have one instance open.

4. Start GNS3 and close the Project window that always appears on startup. We aren’t ready for projects yet
5. Follow the Step 5 procedures in Phase II above to add the GNS3 VM and file locations to the new PC’s GNS3 settings. Make sure to apply the settings
6. Reboot GNS3 and wait for the lights to turn green
   

   

7. Navigate to the Project Library tab and press Refresh List
   

   

   NOTE: Once you have changed the project path direction in Phase II above, your projects should automatically save to the external drive. However, when you create new projects, you can specify the portable drive so they will appear in the projects library.

   

    

8. You should now see the projects stored on your thumb drive. Select one and press OK
   

   

9. Your project will work, with all the settings from the previous PC on which you ran it
10. Some important notes

• • ALWAYS turn off all devices before turning off GNS3 – this action saves the settings of each device
  • It is highly recommended that you use Windows’ “Safely Remove Hardware” feature when removing your thumb drive to prevent data loss
  • Backup your thumb drive often
  • If you start the project and you get an error, READ the error. Most likely, you failed to import a VM from the thumb drive, such as Kali, Ubuntu, etc. If this happens
    • Close GNS3
    • Navigate to your thumb drive and repeat Step 3 above
    • If you don’t have the VM on your thumb drive, you have really jacked yourself up. However, you can sometimes fake it
      • In VirtualBox, create a new VM with the same name as the VM you are missing
      • This doesn’t always work, but it works often enough that it can save your bacon
  • Remember, the VPCSs will only save their settings if you type ‘save’ when you are in the console
  • Your project will work, but it does not automatically bring in every appliance. Take a look at the figure below; Chromium works just fine, yet it is not listed in the All Devices menu
    • You can duplicate appliances that you brought with the project, but if you want to add new appliances, you have to create a new template as described in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4

End of Lab