Re: gns3

My setup runs on Ubuntu linux with an intel Q6600 quad core with 8GB
RAM. I have it setup to run full security topologies from INE, IPX
and Yusuf so...that is anywhere between 9 and 15 routers, 2 ASAs, an
IPS, a win2k3 VM and a winXP VM. I can pull this off averaging about
20% CPU load spiking sometimes to around 40%, 50% is usually the max
it would go. Now, when I started building this, I knew next to
nothing about it and here were some keys for me getting it running
right

- idlepc value is key as everybody has said. Make sure you do the
idlepc tests with NOTHING else running in dynamips. Boot a single
router instance, make sure the config is blank, get out of the initial
startup config and when it is just sitting there doing nothing by
itself with no config run the idelpc get

- idlemax value changed my life considerably. I set mine to 100 on
recommendation from something I read at some point I don't remember,
and it dramatically helped my CPU utilization.

- Allocate only REAL memory to your virtual routers. By default
dynamips emulates your router RAM by basically putting it in a swap
file on the hard disk. It also has the capability to do ghostios
where it is essentially sharing one IOS image between all your
routers. I found the only way to fly is allocating real RAM. Here
are my settings:

ghostios, sparsemem and mmap all turned OFF. See the dynamips
tutorial for details here: http://dynagen.org/tutorial.htm

If anybody is interested in how I put my rack together check out this
article: http://astorinonetworks.com/2012/01/31/building-a-ccie-security-vrack/

Hope that helps

On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 9:43 PM, Aaron <aaron1_at_gvtc.com> wrote:
> I just installed gns3 for the first time
>
>
>
> It's pretty cool.
>
>
>
> When I fire up 3 or 4 or 5 instances of a 7200 router using 12.4T adv entr
> svc my laptop bogs down terribly. I did the idle pc thing a few times and
> with a few routers it seemed to help. But after doing 4 or 5 or more it
> didn't seem to help any.
>
>
>
> My laptop is not so new. lemme know what you think
>
>
>
> Dell Latitude D830
>
> Inter Core 2 Duo CPU
>
> T7250 2.00 GHz
>
> 2 GB Ram
>
>
>
> Windows XP Pro SP3
>
>
>
> Aaron
>
>
> Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Subscription information may be found at:
> http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Regards,
Joe Astorino
CCIE #24347
http://astorinonetworks.com
"He not busy being born is busy dying" - Dylan
Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net