Junos in GNS3 Jungle

step by step

by Milan Zapletal, netohub.com, @netohub, Oct 2014

1. Running JunOS in VirtualBox

After successfully installing Virtualbox, we need to get the image. It's possible to
download JunOS image and create VirtualBox image out of it, but I just searched
for JunOS12.ova (stands for Open Virtualization Format Archive). I'm very sure
it's easy to find. JunOS runs on top of FreeBSD, so make sure you have
installed that.
After executing the *.ova file, VirtualBox starts with initial setup screen. Just
import it and it's done, very easy. You can give it a test run to make sure the
image is operational. It can take up to 10 minutes, depending on your system.

How to run JunOS in GNS3 - VirtualBox setup

2. Creating VirtualBox vboxnetX interface

We need to create a virtual interface or interfaces and assign them to our
VirtualBox machine or machines. This can be done in main VBox preferences:

Creating vboxnet0 in Virtualbox

VirtualBox - vboxnet0 IP setup

Use subnet preferably different from your local network:

VirtualBox - vboxnet0 IP setup

Then let's go to VBox machine settings:

3. Running GNS3 Jungle

For installing new GNS3 1.0 Jungle, I used instructions on their new Community
website. However it doesn't include initial configuration steps, so let's get to that.
At first, I strongly recommend running GNS3 from terminal, because it's much
easier to troubleshoot. You will easily see what parts is you software missing etc:

GNS3 in terminal

4. Configuring vboxwrapper in GNS3

Vboxwrapper is Linux VirtualBox controller, needs to be installed with python 2.7.
It can be downloaded here.
Then:
mulllen@mulllen:~/Downloads$ ls | grep wrap
vboxwrapper-master.zip
mulllen@mulllen:~/Downloads$ unzip vboxwrapper-master.zip
Archive: vboxwrapper-master.zip
9efa046d2ed29a1b81f7d8bdb861baca858e1f92

mulllen@mulllen:~/Downloads$ cd vboxwrapper-master/
mulllen@mulllen:~/Downloads/vboxwrapper-master$ ls
LICENSE README.md setup.py vboxwrapper
mulllen@mulllen:~/Downloads/vboxwrapper-master$ python2.7 setup.py
install
mulllen@mulllen:/$ which vboxwrapper
/usr/local/bin/vboxwrapper

We will copy its path to GNS3 preferences.

vboxwrapper path in GNS3

5. Create new VirtualBox instance in GNS3

VirtualBox machine settings

JunOS in GNS3

And that's it, there's no need to run Virtualbox itself, just start it up in GNS3
and it takes care of everything, have fun!