A Simple Introduction to Cisco CML2

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A Simple Introduction to Cisco CML2

Like This Video 0 3955 Mark Jacob
Added by June 9, 2020

Mark Jacob, Cisco Instructor, presents an introduction to Cisco Modeling Labs 2.0 or CML2.0, an upgrade to Cisco’s VIRL Personal Edition. Mark demonstrates Terminal Emulator access to console, as well as console access from within the CML2.0 product.


Hello, I’m Mark Jacob, a Cisco Instructor and Network Instructor at Interface Technical Training. I’ve been using VIRL personal edition for a while. Cisco, just a couple of weeks ago, announced that that tech product was being moved to what’s called Cisco Modeling Labs 2.0, CML2  or CML2.0.

VIRL, by the way, I like to call it viral, it’s pronounced V‑I‑R‑L. Anyway, I’m going to show you, that’s what I got on the board here, intro. When I interact with networking devices, I do like to be able to use my local terminal emulator. I’ll show you accessing it. I’m assuming you’ve already downloaded it, paid the fees, licensing and all that, so that you have access to it.

I happen to be using VMware Workstation. To save a little time, I already launched the machine. Let me get this out of the way. One of the things I want to do when I’m looking at the machine the first time, if you log it in and we bring up VMware Workstation, I would like to know what IP address is going to be used, because I’m going to use a browser on my local machine to access it.

Initially, my thought was, “Let me log in and get the IP address using the IP address show command,” you know to sound important. It turns out, it’s right there on the screen in the blue letters, 172.16.6.5. I realize it’s probably small. That way you know the IP address I’m using didn’t just manufacture. It’s not some arbitrary number. That’s the IP address that is going to be accessible by a browser.

I must leave this running. I’ll minimize it. I’ll use Chrome. Bring up Google Chrome. My favorite search engine and yours is my home page, DuckDuckGo, search engine that doesn’t track you. Let me go to that address. From memory, I’m sure you all wrote it down 172.16.6.5. Hey, I’ve been there before. Launch it.

I’m going to go ahead and log in. The login here, you will have created this during the setup procedure. Cisco does provide instructions for this download. You follow written instructions. During that process, you will have created this account. I’m going to log in using the information that I created. Admin.

There we go. Pays to write it down. This is the main screen when you log in to the CML product. You’ll notice I was piddling around a little bit to get a couple other labs that I created. I wanted to show you from the beginning. If this is the first time you’ve logged in, something as simple as, “I want to create a lab environment. What do I do?”

If that were the case, these other two labs would not be there. Close your eyes, pretend they’re not there. Up here at the top, it says add lab. Fairly self‑explanatory. I will click add lab. It creates a new lab instance.

It gives it a very creative name there. It’s already highlighted blue. I’ll name it something else. Let’s call it video blog. That’s what this is, video blog. I’m going to click in anywhere inside this box and watch what it does.

It will take me to the workbench view. The devices that are here on the right side, I did not have to do anything extra for those devices to be present. In other words, when you get the CML2 products, CML2 products, they are there.

You can spend lots and lots of time investigating a traffic generator with T‑REX there. For this video, I want to quickly bring in some devices and show you how to get them rolling.

I’ll go ahead and grab iOS. You click drag into the canvas and let go. Let me do that. Click, drag. I’m going to purposely put it in the middle to show you something else in a minute. Let me bring another one, iOS, click, drag, let go.

Then let’s go ahead and grab a layer 2, iOS layer 2 device. Boom, there we go. All done. Your next order of business.

If you’re done, that should be enough for this demo. Let me close that. If you’re in the middle of a lab or if you’re like, “Wait, I forgot something and I need more devices,” not so tough, click on this and drag that back out again. Anyway, get that out of the way.

To make connections between the devices, I can hover over a particular device.

You notice that blue chain link fence above it, I will click on that and hold it, and then let go when I get to the next device.

I can either say use next available or I can choose. I like choosing to make my…If I’m doing diagrams that I’ve made some kind of a convention or choice in my interface selection.

I’m going to say Gig0/0 on the originating device and Gig0/0 on the receiving device. You’ll notice there’s a connection.

Let’s do it one more time. Hover over this guy, grab the chain link fence, drag, let go on this side. It’ll ask me again, and I’ll go with Gig0/1, Gig/01. Anything that’s blue color, I can select.

My devices exist. One of the things I want to show you is that’s why I said I purposely stuck in the middle of the canvas, like, “Well, what if I want more room? I want to see more.” Let me click somewhere in the canvas near it. I can pretty much drag the entire thing up here, give myself more room. Good stuff.

Let me go back to lab manager. I’ll click that over here, lab manager. You’ll notice here I am, video blog.

I will go ahead and click the start lab button. Boom, start that lab. Let me click back inside the box here. Should take me back to workbench view.

You’ll see the little refresh, the green arrows circling each other, the devices are launching.

Just like in real life, devices take a moment to launch. You can tell they’re not completely launched yet, because you’ll get a nice solid green when it’s done.

Meanwhile, back on Gilligan’s Island, we can look at simulate option here. I can start and stop the lab. Various nodes, individual information about those devices, how busy is it making my machine?

In fact, one of the things I could do is while this is launching, let me go ahead and bring up task mangler here and go to performance.

Look, I got CPU lit up there. This is i7, 2.5 gigahertz, 16 gigs RAM. This is not the latest and greatest, going to displace the world’s fastest supercomputer, but it’s a decent machine to be able to run this CML product.

There you go. CPU usage. Halfway. What the heck? Get that back out of the way again. You can interact with a device. You’ll notice, by the way, it’s still in the process of launching. The intro slide that I put up there was, “Well what if I want to access it not from within the program, but I want to access it by my local terminal emulator?”

Let’s see here. I have to bring up my…Where did I hide it? Give me a moment here. I put it in downloads. You can tell this is live. It’s like downloads, and then Cisco.

Then CML FKA. FKA, formerly known as.

Let’s go tools.

And breakout.

Here I am. Here’s the folder. This is in file explorer.

I want this text, so I’ll copy this. Then I can get this back out of the way again.

Notice, by the way, that file name is breakout. I’ll show you here in a second how to grab that.

Let’s go to a command prompt. Let’s see here.

Yes, I would like all the power. Let’s do this.

Let’s see if we can go in here and crank this font up a little bit so you get 18. Look at that. There we go. That’s visible now.

Since I did the Ctrl+C or the copy, I should be able to go CD. Let’s CD to that location. Hold on. CD. Try that.

Real quick, dir to make sure I’m in the right place. I’m looking for that breakout. Yep, there it is.

Let’s get this out of the way for a moment and I’ll show you…Hey, green checkmarks.

What if I want this breakout thing of which you speak? I can come over here. Let’s see if I get into lab manager view.

In lab manager view, one of the options up at the top here in the far right is tools. Click tools. There is breakout tool. It’s going to launch a new tab here.

I’ve already done this. I’m showing you where to go. Of course, you’re going to faithfully read every word of this, all of it, all the way through until you get to the very bottom.

There in tiny little letters in blue are the links to grab the breakout version for whatever platform you’re using. In my case, Windows. Like I say, I’ve already downloaded. You’ll notice it downloads it, breakout‑windows‑blah, blah. What is helpful and you’ll notice that I did it. I can close this tab is I renamed the file breakout.exe, because a lot of the commands and the instructions I referenced that, it makes it easier, less to type.

Before I show you the accessing it using a local terminal emulator, let’s go back to this guy, video blog. If I hover on one of these devices, look, there’s a console. You’re like, “What do I need a terminal emulator for?”

I’ll click on that guy.

It brings up this. Let me drag it, see if I can move this guy. Look at that. That’s why it’s so nice to be able to move it.

Drag this up a little bit higher. Open the console. There you go.

If I tap enter a couple of times, just like a real device.

Let’s say I want to access my switch. I hover over here, I click on that guy, and open it.

What if I want to see them both at the same time? Sometimes I’ll be generating pings from one device, running debugs on the other. I want to see the pings getting sent and I want to see them get out. In other words, I want more than one window…I’m picky, more than one window open at a time. This works, but it’s not what I prefer.

Let’s go back. I need to be running the command, which again, this is in the instructions. I’m going to type it. Breakout. Some options are available, but the one I want, UI. Hit it.

It’ll fire that guy up.

You’ll notice that part of the information that is now present is the IP address port information that we’re going to need to perform the next step.

Let’s go ahead and do that. Leave this running as well. Minimize this guy. That same information that I just looked at, I want to put it in my tab 127.0.0.1: hey, I’ve been there before, 8080, hit enter.

Breakout UI. Give that a moment. Make sure it’s going to let me in.

While that’s happening, I probably can click over here at configuration and let you look at it. I wanted you to see the settings. You’ll notice I use IPv4, the 127.0.0.1 IP address as opposed to ::1, which was pre‑populated.

Anyway, this should be good. I should be able to go back to labs here. There’s my video blog.

The whole idea of what I’m doing is so that I can access my devices using a terminal emulator, PuTTY, Tera Term, SecureCRT, ZOC, XShell, or whatever your favorite. Let me go ahead and enable this guy. Turn that guy on.

You’ll notice anywhere inside this rectangle here between these lines, they’re trying to change its color. I now can click inside there.

What I’m looking for is these greens for the serials. If you log into this for yourself, and these are on the left, then slide them to the right to enable them.

Let me show you one way. Actually, let’s go back here so that we can see…Let’s pick one of these devices.

I go back to simulate mode, nodes, design. What I want to see, let’s go ahead and click on console.

I’m on iOS v0, because I want to be able to see what’s happening on the console that comes with this as opposed to a connection from a local terminal emulator.

Let’s go back to this. Here’s one way to do it. iOS v0, that’s this guy. I can click this link and it’ll launch my default terminal emulator, SecureCRT. Should take me right to it. Let’s click it.

Open SecureCRT.

There it is, 127.0.0.1.

Let’s do this. Let’s click on this tab.

Then bring that back.

I’ll tap enter a couple of times here. You’ll notice what’s happening there, I’ll say no. I’m typing in my local connection, my local console, say no. It’s the same information. I like this way because I am able to have multiple windows, I can move them around.

One more thing you might be interested in seeing is that’s accessing it by clicking the blue hyperlink within the breakout.

The other way, and you’ll notice I pre‑built this to save a little time, but look at this, I have 1-9002. How do I know what number to use?

Go back, check it out. It’s in there. 9002 should get me to iOS v1.

Let’s get back over here. It’s already pre‑configured telnet. I’ll go ahead and connect to it.

Bring up a new tab. Boom, here’s the next device.

Please answer yes or no. No. To me, this is a good way to use it.

Now, if you’ve been using VIRL for a while, my personal opinion, the interaction, the ability to work with the newly released CML2 product is by far easier, I could say, at least it was for me. I hope this little intro will give you a little bit more confidence in firing up your own version of CML.

Mark Jacob, Instructor
Cisco and CompTIA Network +
Interface Technical Training
Phoenix, AZ

 

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