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The CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure Practical Exam is extensively virtualized – aside from hardware-based Catalyst 9300 Series switches used in the SDA part of the topology, all other elements of the network topology run as virtual machines.
End host VMs in the lab topology are based on a custom Debian/GNU Linux installation. Aside from acting as user computers in the lab topology, these end hosts are also used to access the vManage and DNA Center GUI, perform selected automation tasks, and they come with a set of network-related tools useful to verify, stress or troubleshoot the functionality of the lab network.
The essential software tools on the end host VMs are well-known, platform-independent, and do not require any special Linux knowledge – Firefox, Wireshark, Python, Postman. However, I understand that Linux is not everyone’s second nature; what is more, under Linux, there are far more choices of different software tools and utilities, so even a candidate well-versed in using Linux may still have a lot of specific questions about the host VM setup. Finally, knowing what additional tools are available on the host VM may help you on the lab – none of those tools are required to complete the lab but if you know they are available, you may use them to your advantage in any way you see fit.
Therefore, in some of my first CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure orientation webinars, I have promised that I will make this host VM public for anyone to download and get acquainted with. It took me far more time than I expected, and I sincerely apologize for that. But at last, I am happy to announce that the host VM is here :)
This post is to give you quick notes on where to access the image, how to import it and how to navigate around the VM. It is not the purpose of this post to teach you details of the Linux operating system or do a deep dive into the tools installed on this VM. For a more detailed overview of the VM and the available tools, I am preparing a dedicated webinar to be aired soon – stay tuned!
Downloading and importing the host VM
The CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure host VM can be downloaded from the links below. The image was exported from VMware ESXi 6.x and should be importable without issues into all major virtualization tools. The image consists of 3 files:
When importing the image into your virtualization environment, consider the following technical details:
End host VMs in the lab topology are based on a custom Debian/GNU Linux installation. Aside from acting as user computers in the lab topology, these end hosts are also used to access the vManage and DNA Center GUI, perform selected automation tasks, and they come with a set of network-related tools useful to verify, stress or troubleshoot the functionality of the lab network.
The essential software tools on the end host VMs are well-known, platform-independent, and do not require any special Linux knowledge – Firefox, Wireshark, Python, Postman. However, I understand that Linux is not everyone’s second nature; what is more, under Linux, there are far more choices of different software tools and utilities, so even a candidate well-versed in using Linux may still have a lot of specific questions about the host VM setup. Finally, knowing what additional tools are available on the host VM may help you on the lab – none of those tools are required to complete the lab but if you know they are available, you may use them to your advantage in any way you see fit.
Therefore, in some of my first CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure orientation webinars, I have promised that I will make this host VM public for anyone to download and get acquainted with. It took me far more time than I expected, and I sincerely apologize for that. But at last, I am happy to announce that the host VM is here :)
This post is to give you quick notes on where to access the image, how to import it and how to navigate around the VM. It is not the purpose of this post to teach you details of the Linux operating system or do a deep dive into the tools installed on this VM. For a more detailed overview of the VM and the available tools, I am preparing a dedicated webinar to be aired soon – stay tuned!
Downloading and importing the host VM
The CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure host VM can be downloaded from the links below. The image was exported from VMware ESXi 6.x and should be importable without issues into all major virtualization tools. The image consists of 3 files:
- CCIE_EI_HostVM.mf – the manifest file
Size: 189 bytes
SHA512: c0b49e6d46a8d0c0adcb3df2dab824d879950a4a3d15425eaf 46afa3732d83dcf4f2ef2e53660e01d31bd6857a76daa4c607 0212c160d78583045251f7fb90a3 - CCIE_EI_HostVM.ovf – the VM description file
Size: 7372 bytes
SHA512: 03c96edc2b13d01e5337188d86bd1fb28387b520491f847485 6499bcba0ecff2270b71b6e6b8da54ddd950728dd37da3cc99 edc161c54054fdc5ea256d381fc0 - CCIE_EI_HostVM-1.vmdk – the disk image file
Size: 6,467,759,104 bytes
SHA512: a68d48a515de9cff1efbcee48d407caae0d8095f2af8132e16 e85d0826dd12de866cee00cba29e40b8dc8a499e4671b25c5a 03e9898036cdd290264250a18e8c
When importing the image into your virtualization environment, consider the following technical details:
- vCPUs: 2 vCPUs or more are recommended. The VM will run with 1 vCPU but may be somewhat sluggish.
- RAM: 2 GiB or more are recommended.
- vNICs: Use vmxnet3, E1000 or paravirtualized driver (virtio-net). The VM comes with two vNICs since in the current lab, one of the vNICs is connected to the lab topology while the other one is connected to a separate management network. The naming of the vNICs in your setup will almost certainly differ from the naming in the lab as this strongly depends on the hypervisor operation. In the lab, the vNIC connected to the topology is named ens192 while the vNIC connected to the management network is named ens224. Unless you exactly know why you need more vNICs, you are perfectly okay with just one.