VirtualPC container for GNS3

Tested platforms: Ubuntu, OpenSuse, Redhat

The goal is to take profit of docker containers to use inside GNS3 almost as a full-fledged linux endhost instead of using the very limited VPCS or an overkill virtual machine.

This includes a script to manage containers and set networking parameters using pipework.

Documentation and example are provided here (cciethebeginning.wordpress.com)

Requirements

You will need: git, docker, pipework. ~~and lxterminal.~~

1.git

sudo apt-get install git

2.Docker easy to install

docker -v
Docker version 1.8.1, build d12ea79

3.pipework, a simple yet powerful bash script, for advanced docker networking

sudo bash -c “curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jpetazzo/pipework/master/pipework > /usr/local/bin/pipework”
sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/pipework

~~4.lxterminal~~

lxterminal is not required anymore, the script will detect the used terminal and use it to open interactive terminal access to containers.

To use docker as non-root user

sudo usermod -aG docker {user}

Pull images from DockerHub

The script will automatically pull the latest images from DockerHUB, if they do not exist locally.

You can do it manually If you want:

docker pull ajnouri/dockervpc
docker pull quantumobject/docker-cacti
docker pull socketplane/openvswitch

Manually Build DockerVPC image

After cloning the repository you can modify Dockerfile, to add your own tools or alleviate it, and rebuild it manually. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/AJNOURI/DockerVPC
cd DockerVPC

If you want to use public keys for SSH authentication you will have to generate or copy your own public key in the repository directory and build the image manually.

cp /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa.pub id_rsa.pub

or generate a special key pair:

ssh-keygen -t rsa

Now, build the image using the following command:

sudo docker build -t {image-tag} {location-of-Dockerfile}

ex:

sudo docker build -t dockervpc .

The image will be used to run any number of container with the same content:

Start a container

~/DockerVPC$ ./startvpc.sh dockervpc pc1
Spawning a new container
non-network local connections being added to access control list
Container networking... \n
Continue? [Yy] [Nn] y
Enter Host bridge to connect the container to => br10
Enter a new interface inside the container to connect to host bridge => eth1
Enter IP address (without mask) for the container interface => 192.168.10.1
Enter the mask length => 24
Enter the next-hop IP (GNS3 device) => 192.168.10.254
br10 doesn’t exist
command: >> sudo pipework br10 -i eth1 a62dfeff0205 192.168.10.1/24@192.168.10.254 << successfully executed.
Continue with network configuration[Cc], or quit[Qq]? q
~/DockerVPC$

Included tools in the image

These tools included in the image are available in all generated containers.

Tip: You can install other tools if you make the container reach Internet, either directly through host docker0 interface, or by connecting it to your GNS3 topology. Nevertheless, the container VirtualPC is as flexible as a Docker container can be. Docker container technology is developing very fast, so this image will be subject to changes as container capabilities grow.

SSH server

Connect to the container using password-chalenge

Start SSHD on the server container
root@pc2:/# /usr/sbin/sshd

The default SSH password for user root is gns3vpc

From gns3 host
$ ssh root@172.17.0.3

The authenticity of host '172.17.0.3 (172.17.0.3)' can't be >established. ECDSA key fingerprint is >af:c3:85:55:5e:f5:66:cd:b5:99:8b:85:05:c5:27:42. Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes Failed to add the host to the list of known hosts (/home/ajn/.ssh/known_hosts). root@172.17.0.3's password: Last login: Sat Oct 17 14:42:30 2015 from 172.17.42.1 root@pc2:~#

From another container
root@pc1:/# ssh root@192.168.22.1

root@192.168.22.1's password: Last login: Sat Oct 17 14:45:16 2015 from 172.17.42.1 root@pc2:~#

Example of using ansible to manage multiple DockerVPCs

Let's start Apache on multiple containers

Add container IP addresses in /etc/ansible/hosts

[containers]
172.17.0.1
172.17.0.2

$ ansible containers -i /etc/ansible/hosts -m command -a “/usr/sbin/apachectl start” -u root

The authenticity of host ‘172.17.0.1 (172.17.0.1)’ can’t be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is 60:e4:db:26:ac:0c:26:fe:53:0e:b1:86:12:28:55:35.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
The authenticity of host ‘172.17.0.2 (172.17.0.2)’ can’t be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is 60:e4:db:26:ac:0c:26:fe:53:0e:b1:86:12:28:55:35.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
172.17.0.1 | success | rc=0 >>
172.17.0.2 | success | rc=0 >>

Qupzilla browser

More lightweight than Firefox and supports Java and html5, but still troubleshooting flash support.
Just start it:

qupzilla &

Apache server

Start Apache server:

/usr/sbin/apachectl start

From another container connect to the server using curl , links2 or Qupzilla.

Traffic generation tools

- Ostinato

From the running container, start the server component of Ostinato “drone” in the background, so you can continue to use the terminal:

drone &

From Docker host (Your Desktop OS), start Ostinato client GUI and connect to containers IP running drone.

- D-ITG

Single UDP flow with constant inter-departure time between packets and constant packets size:
start the receiver on the destination host (10.0.0.3):

$ ./ITGRecv

start the sender on the source host (10.0.0.4):

$ ./ITGSend -a 10.0.0.3 -sp 9400 -rp 9500 -C 100 -c 500 -t 20000 -x recv_log_file

- iperf

on the destination container (ex: 192.168.22.1):

iperf -s

on the source container:

iperf -c 192.168.22.1

Bird Internet routing daemon

Inject thousands of routes into your GNS3 topology from any DockerVPC container.

VoIP applications

sipp (text-based)

pjsua (text-based)

linphone (text + GUI)

IPv6 THC tools

VLC (VideoLAN)

Simply start vlc with username vlc in background

su -c “vlc” -s /bin/sh vlc &

/media directory contains small video files in multiple formats to play with.

Links2 browser

A minimalistic browser (text+graphic mode).
Text mode:

links <url>

Graphic mode:

links2 -g <url>

vSFTPd server & ftp client

On the server container create a user

root@vsftpd1:/# adduser user1
Adding user user1’ ... Adding new group user1’ (1001) ...
Adding new user user1’ (1001) with group user1’ ...
Creating home directory /home/user1’ ... Copying files from /etc/skel’ ...
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Changing the user information for user1
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
Full Name []:
Room Number []:
Work Phone []:
Home Phone []:
Other []:
Is the information correct? [Y/n] Y
root@vsftpd1:/#

Enable sftpd:

root@vsftpd1:/# /usr/sbin/vsftpd

On the client container:
(ex: 172.17.0.48 is IP of the server container)

root@pc1:/# ftp -n 172.17.0.48
Connected to 172.17.0.48.
220 (vsFTPd 3.0.2)
ftp> user
(username) user1
331 Please specify the password.
Password:
230 Login successful.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> ls -a
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Here comes the directory listing.
drwxr-xr-x 2 1001 1001 4096 Aug 07 06:48 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 0 0 4096 Aug 07 07:04 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 1001 1001 220 Aug 07 06:48 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 1001 1001 3637 Aug 07 06:48 .bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 1001 1001 675 Aug 07 06:48 .profile
226 Directory send OK.
ftp> pwd
257 “/home/user1”
ftp>

And many other tools

inetutils-traceroute, iputils-tracepath, mtr...i

References:

https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/odiobill/vsftpd/
https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/jess/
https://github.com/alexismp/OpenJDK-Docker/blob/master/debian/Dockerfile
https://hub.docker.com/r/quantumobject/docker-cacti
https://github.com/socketplane/docker-ovs

AJNOURI / DockerVPC