Seeking Recommendations for L2/L3 Switches and pfSense Integration in EVE-NG

[salads345]

Hello everyone,

I'm a CS student and have developed an interest in networking. For the past year, I've been managing my home network using a Netgate pfSense firewall, which has been both educational and enjoyable. I wanted to further expand my knowledge and acquired a Catalyst 1200 switch to explore VLANs and more advanced networking concepts. I'm a bit intimidated by the switch and want to get some simulations up and running to test configurations before I start actually using it. I downloaded the new Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) free-tier and It seemed interesting but limited. I also discovered that the Catalyst 1200 doesn't run the expected switch OS. Instead, it uses an IOS-like operating system that is neither classic IOS nor IOS XE. Here https://www.reddit.com/r/Cisco/comments ... assic_ios/. Regardless, I have experience with neither.

I might have fantasized that I could tinker with an exact virtualized copy of the Catalyst 1200 in CML, with the same web GUI and functionality. Since I'm still within the return period for the Catalyst 1200, are there any Layer 2 or Layer 3 switches you would recommend that are fully supported in EVE-NG?

Are there any L2/L3 switches that offer this kind of functionality within a network simulator?

I now see that the Catalyst 1000 Series runs the classic Cisco IOS. Would switching to those switches allow me to use EVE-NG for testing my configurations?

As far as I understand pfsense is fully supported in all these simulators. I can just expect to be able to use a pfsense community edition for my firewall configuration within EVE-NG simulator?

Thank you for your assistance!

[Uldis (UD)]

Best performance L3 switch is IOL
https://www.eve-ng.net/index.php/docume ... -on-linux/

Image from Cisco CML

[salads345]

Thank you for the feedback. I'm pretty sure I'm going to return this 1200 and buy a Catalyst 1000 as the 1000's actually use iOS.

Is it possible to use the below iOSvl2 in EVE-NG?
https://developer.cisco.com/docs/modeli ... l2/#iosvl2

I want to be able to test my configurations as close as possible to what I would be doing in the real world and then deploy my setup from my testing notes.

Is IOL just IOS XE? How close would my configuration for the C1000 be to the IOL XE?
https://developer.cisco.com/docs/modeling-labs/iol-l2/

Also, can i host and configure a community edition of pfsense within eve-ng?

[Uldis (UD)]

vIOS L2/L3 swwitch is IOS 15.x IOS based
IOL switch which I mentioned is XE IOS based, so very close to real XE IOS cli

and pfsense is supported on EVE CE 100%
https://www.eve-ng.net/index.php/3380-2/

Also vIOS swich performance is about 2mbps
vs
IOL XE switch does perfomance 400 mbps

[crucialhawk]

vIOS L2/L3 swwitch is IOS 15.x IOS based
IOL switch which I mentioned is XE IOS based, so very close to real XE IOS cli

and pfsense is supported on EVE CE 100%
https://www.eve-ng.net/index.php/3380-2/

Also vIOS swich performance is about 2mbps
vs
IOL XE switch does perfomance 400 mbps

Thanks for your information. The updated IOS versions are actually compatible with IOL XE.

[Benjamin]

Hello everyone,

I'm a CS student and have developed an interest in networking. For the past year, I've been managing my home network using a Netgate pfSense firewall, which has been both educational and enjoyable. I wanted to further expand my knowledge and acquired a Catalyst 1200 switch to explore VLANs and more advanced networking concepts. I'm a bit intimidated by the switch and want to get some simulations up and running to test configurations before I start actually using it. I downloaded the new Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) free-tier and It seemed interesting but limited. I also discovered that the Catalyst 1200 doesn't run the expected switch OS. Instead, it uses an IOS-like operating system that is neither classic IOS nor IOS XE. Here https://www.reddit.com/r/Cisco/comments ... assic_ios/drive mad. Regardless, I have experience with neither.

I might have fantasized that I could tinker with an exact virtualized copy of the Catalyst 1200 in CML, with the same web GUI and functionality. Since I'm still within the return period for the Catalyst 1200, are there any Layer 2 or Layer 3 switches you would recommend that are fully supported in EVE-NG?

Are there any L2/L3 switches that offer this kind of functionality within a network simulator?

I now see that the Catalyst 1000 Series runs the classic Cisco IOS. Would switching to those switches allow me to use EVE-NG for testing my configurations?

As far as I understand pfsense is fully supported in all these simulators. I can just expect to be able to use a pfsense community edition for my firewall configuration within EVE-NG simulator?

Thank you for your assistance!

If I switch to Catalyst 1000 Series, will I be able to take advantage of the new features in EVE-NG without any limitations?
Thank you

[rusty725]

look one post above yours.

[datatech451]

pfSense (Community Edition) works perfectly in EVE-NG and CML. You can:

Import a pre-configured pfSense VM.

Test firewall rules, VLAN routing, and VPN setups virtually before applying them to your physical Netgate box.