GNS3 vs IMUNES

GNS3 is free, open-source software for emulating, configuring, testing, and troubleshooting virtual and real networks. Its graphical client works with a virtual machine, and servers can run locally or remotely. Users can combine emulated devices running actual images with simulated devices, including a built-in layer 2 switch. It supports appliances from vendors such as Cisco, Brocade, Cumulus Linux, and HPE, as well as Docker, QEMU-based appliances, VMware, VirtualBox, Hyper-V, and connections to real networks. The GNS3 Marketplace offers preconfigured appliance templates with recommended settings. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux; documentation recommends the GNS3 VM for most Windows and macOS setups and complex topologies. Users must supply their own Cisco IOS images. There are no monthly or yearly license fees, and device capacity depends in practice on the host computer’s CPU and memory. GNS3 is used for networking education, certification practice, proofs of concept, demonstrations, and interoperability testing. A server has no authentication enabled by default and should be restricted at the network level.

IMUNES is a free multiprotocol emulator and simulator for general-purpose IP network experiments on FreeBSD and Linux. The project says a single physical machine can run hundreds to thousands of virtual nodes. Its GUI helps create and configure nodes and links, and each node has its own IPv4, IPv6, IPsec, socket and firewall configuration and address space. Link controls can introduce delay, bit errors, duplication and bandwidth limits. Standard UNIX APIs are preserved, so BSD and Linux binaries can run unmodified. On Linux it uses Docker for virtual nodes; on FreeBSD it uses jails and netgraph. The project says experiments can be instantiated in seconds and use hardware resources efficiently. Downloads include public source repositories, examples, security scenarios, manuals and VMware and VirtualBox images. Linux use requires kernel version 3.10 or newer and the Docker daemon; the README also instructs users to run experiments as root. The listed latest image is IMUNES-FreeBSD-14.3-RELEASE (BETA), a 4GB amd64 OVA. The project describes JSON configuration and live changes to nodes, interfaces and links during a running experiment.