Cisco packet tracer alternatives?

general
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My College uses Cisco Packet Tracer software to teach computer networks. Are there any good free and open-source alternatives?

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There’s GNS3, but I’m pretty sure that requires real IOS images. If you have access to those, GNS3 might work well, but with the way Cisco is changing licensing, Packet Tracer might be the only option now. I personally have a few real switches and routers for my home lab – 1x 2610, 2x 2611, 2x 2960, and 1x 3750. It’s old equipment at this point, but it’s good enough for my needs.

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can you elaborate on this?

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Basically it looks like Cisco home labs will soon be a thing of the past. The license belongs to an organization, not a device, so if you sell an old device it becomes unlicensed.

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I use Eve-NG (https://www.eve-ng.net/), very nice and as its HTML5 you can access it anywhere using a browser :slight_smile:
I used it for my Cisco, Juniper, Cumulus Linux - Mellanox Switches (now bought out by NVIDIA)
The documentation is really good so should not have any issues installing the software (can run as a VM, but needs horsepower if you are running large environments especially if you are running Juniper MX960’s etc)

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Thanks for sharing this. Welcome to the forums. :handshake:

Love the username btw! :upside_down_face:

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