Beginner's Guide: Setting Up Your Network Automation Lab

Beginner's Guide: Setting Up Your Network Automation Lab

  7:53 PM    Syed Asif

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Network automation labs are a great place for beginners to enhance their skills, test a project, and gain hands-on experience. In this blog post, you will look into the necessary steps to set up your own network automation lab.

If you're a network engineer, an associate, or a system admin and want to increase your skill, this guide is for your help to get started with automation.

Why Network Automation?

Before we set up the process, let's understand why a network automation lab is so critical for beginners:

Hands-On Learning: Network automation is not just theory, it's practical implementation. A lab environment allows you to experiment without risk of breaking a production networks.

Skill Development: You will be proficient in network automation tools, scripting, and configurations, which are in high demand in the industry. 

Risk-Free Environment: Making mistakes and learn from them in a safe and controlled environment.

Now that you recognize the importance of a network automation lab, let's proceed next to set up the lab.

Basic Lab Requirements

Before you start to set up a lab environment, ensure you have the following tools and software:

Hardware: You'll need a computer to host your lab environment. It doesn't need to be very powerful, but it should meet the minimum lab requirements.

Virtualization Software: Software like VMware Workstation, VirtualBox, or GNS3 allows you to create virtual machines (VMs) for your lab.

Operating Systems: Install your preferred OS (my OS is Windows) for both host and VMs. Linux's distributions are commonly used for network automation.

Network Devices: Virtual routers and switches are needed for simulating network configurations.

Setting Up Your Lab Environment

Now, let's set up your network automation lab:
 

Microsoft loop-back adapter

1. Right-click on the window start menu icon and select Device Manager.

2. Select Network adapters and click on Action tab, and select Add legacy hardware.

3. Click Next on the welcome screen.

4. Choose “Install the hardware that I manually select from a list” and click on Next.

5. Select Network adapters from offered common hardware types and click on Next. 

6. Select Microsoft, and select Microsoft KM-TEST Loop-back adapter card model, click on Next.

7. Click on Next and Finish.

Identify your loop-back adapter, in my case Ethernet2 as shown below:

GNS3 and Network device

Start GNS3 and drop a cloud node at the workspace and configure as below:

1. Right-click Cloud node, select Configure, and then select “Show special Ethernet interfaces.”
2. Add the Ethernet2 from the drop-down menu.
3. Delete any other interfaces.
4. Highlight the Ethernet2
5. Click on add button.
6. Apply OK.

Change the symbol to a computer and rename cloud node to PC.

Configure Ethernet2 adapter from opening Network and Sharing Center, then change adopter setting and add static IP address as below:

 

 Add switch and router as below:

 Configure SW1 as below:

conf t
!
hostname SW1
!
enable secret cisco
service password-encryption
!
username admin password cisco
!
no ip domain-lookup       
!
interface Vlan1
 ip address 9.9.9.2 255.255.255.0
 no shutdown
!
line vty 0 4
 logging synchronous
 login local
 transport input all
!
end
!
wr

Also configure router in same network.

Configuration of windows defender firewall

1. You can open the Windows Defender firewall as shown.
2. Open Windows defender firewall with Advanced Security and enable these two settings on the inbound rules as below:

 

1. File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request – ICMPv4-In) Private
2. File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request – ICMPv6-In) Private

This allows GNS3 to send back ICMP (ping) request to the host PC.

By following this beginner's guide to setting up your network automation lab, you'll be on your way to becoming proficient in network automation. 

In conclusion, a network automation lab is your training ground for a successful career in network automation and IT. 

Ready to take the first step? Begin your network automation lab journey today!