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GNS-3 VM deployment on VMWare ESX

Introduction

The virtual machine contains a GNS3 server installed on a Linux server (Ubuntu) and could be deployed on a VMWare ESX cloud. This server can then be used as a remote server

Installation of the original GNS3 VM

  • Download the .ova file corresponding to the hypervisor present on your cloud (ESXi in this case), under:

    And import it.

    Information

    It is important to have the same version of the VM and GNS-3 for everything to work perfectly.

  • Import this OVA into your VMWare Cloud

  • connect it to the correct network

Installation of GNS-3 on a remote Linux

An other possibility is to install GNS3 on a fresh Linux machine. This could be:

  • your own server
  • a bare metal host
  • a cloud provider

Version 2.2.x

This installation is described in the GNS3 Documentation.

Version 3.x

As of today, without any special configuration, the version 2.2.x will be installed. If you need to install the version 3.x, you don’t need to use this installation script. For example, on an Ubuntu 24.04 linux machine:

  • create the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gns3-ubuntu-ppa-noble.sources file with the following content: 
    Types: deb
URIs: https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/gns3/ppa-v3/ubuntu/
Suites: noble
Components: main
Signed-By:
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  • Install GNS3 and its components: 
    apt install dynamips gns3-gui gns3-iou gns3-server gns3-webclient-pack
  • Check that the gns3-server is running: 
    ss -lnpt
ps -ex | grep gns3

Increase main disk size

From the vsphere management interface, increase the first hard drive size from 5GB to 30GB. Connect then a gparted ISO image to the VM and increase the size of the /dev/sda to the new size. Restart the VM.

VM Customization

From the main GNS3 menu, here are the minimum customization you have to do:

  • Change the keyboard layout
  • Upgrade the VM to the desired GNS3 version
  • Configure Server security by enabling SSL
  • Configure the network with a correct IP address
  • Configure the server (choose other port than 443, image and project path)
Dernière mise à jour: 9 juillet 2025