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(electronic sound effect)

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- In this video, before
we go into the details

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of how to create a GNS3 virtual topology

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of routers and EtherSwitches.

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We need to preface that, by first,

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going over just some real
basic GNS3 terminology.

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As you can see from the title of this,

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we're gonna talk about
the differences between

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projects, topologies, and nodes.

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This'll be a real short video,

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but these things are critical
for you to understand.

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So, let's start by just opening up GNS3

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by double clicking on the icon here.

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And you'll see that the very
first thing it asks us to do,

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is to either create the
name of a brand new project

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that we're gonna start out with,

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or open an existing project.

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So that leads us to the question of,

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what exactly is a project?

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Okay, so to answer that, I've actually-

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I'm going go to ahead
and cancel out of here,

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and cancel out of here.

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And I've all ready created a GNS3 project,

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actually I'll go ahead and show you

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what that looks like within GNS3.

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So from here, I'm just
gonna go on Open a Project,

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and these are various project
folders that are here.

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I'll tell you what those
are in just a second,

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but let me just go ahead and
click on this EIGRP Project.

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So when you're opening
an existing project,

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you'll go into where
your projects are stored,

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and notice, at least in
this version of GNS3,

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projects, by default, are stored-

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Let me go back.

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Under your C drive,

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under Users,

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under the name of you, your user name,

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and then you'll see there's a GNS3 folder,

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and if you double click on that,

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you'll see a Projects folder.

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Double click on Projects,

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and that is where all of
your projects are stored.

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So, as you go about using GNS3

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to create your own labs for
BGP, OSPF, whatever it is,

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and you name those labs
whatever you want to name it,

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BGP, Santa Claus, Red Racing Car,

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whatever the name of your project is,

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it'll be stored here,
in your Projects folder.

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Once again, notice that it's your C drive,

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Users, your user name in your laptop,

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GNS3, and Projects.

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So, let me go ahead and open
up one of my existing projects.

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I'll click on the name of the project,

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and then I'll go to the
actual GNS3 project file,

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and I'm gonna talk about
that in just a second.

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So when I open that project
file, it opens this.

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A real simple project that
I created just this morning

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of three routers and an EtherSwitch,

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some basic stuff.

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Now, how did that project
file create all of this?

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In other words, what's
in that project file

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that remembered all of
this when I created it?

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So let me go ahead and
minimize this for a second,

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and bring up that project file.

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So here it is.

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I'll go ahead and double click on that.

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And you'll see that right
in the very high level

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you've got three things.

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You've got a screen shot,
which, you can open that up.

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It's just a PNG image.

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And that shows, it actually took,

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right after I saved the
project it took a screen shot

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of what the topology currently was.

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And this is nice, you can send this

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as an e-mail attachment to somebody

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if you want to show them
what you've created.

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It's just a PNG image.

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And then you've got your project files,

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and if I double click on that,

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it goes into Dynamips,

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and this is all the stuff
that Dynamips is using,

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and we don't have to
go into a lot of detail

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of what all this stuff is,

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but you'll also see in here,

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there are some config files.

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And so, when you issue a write memory,

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or a copy run start
command on your router-

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So I'm saying here, that
you've created a project,

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and you've been working
with it for an hour or so,

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and you're ready to leave it behind,

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you have to go off and do something else,

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but you might want to come
back to this in the future.

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So on every single router and
device you've got in there,

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you do copy run start or write mem.

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Well what that does,
is in this folder here,

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it creates what's called
a Startup Config file.

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And you can actually open
those up with a text editor,

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I'm gonna use NotePad+.

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And you can see here,

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I'll just make this a little bit bigger,

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this is the last known state
of your saved configuration.

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So that the next time
you open this project

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within GNS3, it'll go right
back to the state where it was.

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So that's where all
those config files are.

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And once again, that was located

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under your projects files here.

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So, I went to my users, GNS3 Projects,

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I double clicked on the
actual name of the project,

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and under Project Files

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is where all those configurations were.

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So these are your configuration files,

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all located in here.

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That's where your config files
are located, right there.

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So what is this thing
called a Project File?

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Well, you can also open that up,

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notice it's a GNS3 Project File,

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but you can right click on it,

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open it up with a text editor,

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once again, Notepad or Notepad+.

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And I'm not gonna go through
this in a lot of depth,

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but basically, what this file is,

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is this file gives GNS3
everything it needs to know about,

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"Okay, when I build this thing,

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where are the routers located?"

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For example, when I
show the user a square,

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a working area, is the router
gonna be in the upper left,

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in the lower left?

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Is it gonna be in the right
or somewhere in the middle?

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So that's one of the
things this file does,

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is it displays those router icons

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in the same locations as where
you dragged and dropped them

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when you saved the project file,

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so they're not just all willy-nilly.

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It also, in here, saves, you
know, how were they connected.

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Was router A connected to router B

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via a FastEthernet?

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Or via serial interface?

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If it was FastEthernet,
which FastEthernet?

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Was it FastEthernet 00, 0/1?

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So all of that is stored in here as well.

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It also stores information, like,

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what was the name of the device?

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You know, if you change
the name default name

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from Router 1 or San
Francisco, or to Fuzzy,

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or Bob or something,

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all of that is saved in here,

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so that when you open it up,

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those changes are also in effect.

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Other things like, you know,

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when you created the project,

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what kind of a router was it?

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Was it is a 3640?

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A 3725?

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Something else?

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Also, what IOS image was used?

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It stores the actual full IOS image

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that you used when you
created the project.

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So this GNS3 project file,

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pretty much the only thing it doesn't have

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are the configs, the start up config.

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But everything else is stored in here,

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so that GNS3 can recreate your project

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once you pull it up.

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So as I just scroll
through here a little bit,

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you can see it's got, you know,

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your X and Y coordinates
for this particular router,

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so it will place it on the screen

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exactly where it needs to go.

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It talks about a description about a link,

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what it's connected to.

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If I scroll down a little bit more,

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so you see, each one of
these is describing a device,

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node_id 2, well I don't know what that is,

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but GNS3 knows what that is.

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That's one particular
router or switch in there.

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And if I go further on down,

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so this is all just describing
where things show up

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in the picture, and how
they're all connected.

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So you notice how, right
here, gets all the adapters,

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their names, how GNS3 recognizes them.

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If I go down a little bit further,

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gives my idlepc value that was assigned.

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It also gives the name of the router,

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if I changed it from the
default name to something else.

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The platform, and it even goes down here

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a little bit further,

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and, yeah, right here, the image.

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It shows the image that was created.

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So this is your GNS3 project file,

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so when you are saving a project,

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just to recap, what exactly are you doing

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when you save a project?

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Well, whatever the name
of that project is,

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it creates a folder with that name,

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as you can see here.

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And within that folder,
it creates a screenshot,

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so it can display that
screenshot for you again.

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It creates a projects file,

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which has all of your config files in it,

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as well as also the state of memory,

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like you know, what was the
state of the routing table,

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what was the state of the ARP table,

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and all that good stuff.

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And then lastly, it has a projects file,

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and we talked about what that is.

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So I'm not quite done yet,

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but hopefully at this point,

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you understand the difference
between a config file

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and a project file from
the standpoint of GNS3.

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Right? The project file is
everything but the configs.

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The project file is how GNS
pieces everything together.

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The config file, like we talked about,

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is, just like it sounds,

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it's the last state of your configs

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when you did a write memory.

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Now, keep this in mind,

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if you close your GNS3 project,

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if you're done, and you walk away from it,

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and you close it all up.

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Anything that was not saved is gone.

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It's just like a real router. Right?

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In a real Cisco IOS router,

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if you power that router off,

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anything that was in your
running configuration

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that was not saved to your
start up configuration is lost.

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Same thing here with GNS3.

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It does not save a copy of what

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your last running configuration was.

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It only saves what your last
start up configuration was.

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So make sure you save your
configs with write mem

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or copy run start before you
turn off all your routers,

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and shut down the GNS3 application.

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One other thing I wanted to talk about,

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just one other term.

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So in GNS3 terminology,

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if you take a look at this
window here, off to the left.

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This is a tool bar here,

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that shows you all of the
nodes that are available.

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So, for example, if I
click on this one here,

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this shows me all of the router
nodes that are available.

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This shows me my switching
nodes that are available,

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or my PC nodes, or a Cloud node.

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So pretty much, anything
that you can drag and drop

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into this working area right here,

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is what GNS3 considers to be a node,

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whether it be a router, a
switch, a PC, a firewall,

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they're all considered nodes
from GNS3's standpoint.

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So as far as basic
terminology is concerned,

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that concludes this particular video,

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and the next set of videos
will take a better look

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at this user interface,

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and see what the various tool bars are,

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and how we can start building
some basic topologies.

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