GNS3 Network Simulator

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I just found this router simulator through an article. You must supply an IOS for it to run on the particular router of choice but you can configure your own simulated networks with virtual devices on you PC.

Is this legal as i have seen that this is against copyright with Cisco IOS. If not how do these companies get away with blatantly advertising that you NEED to obtain the IOS to run this which basically means telling people to go out there and break the law. I was naive and went ahead with this without even thinking about copyright issues until it was brought to my attention through a post that was written here a while back. I'm no rule breaker, i did this through not thinking but i just dont get how these companies get away with it.

 

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Its the same thing as torrents. Everyone knows that 9%% of torrent traffic is copyrighted files, but because there are perfectly legitimate uses for torrents there's no way they could be 'banned'

The simulator could be used legitimately, but the only way to do it and gain any use is to run Cisco IOS images - which is against Cisco's ts & cs. Put simply, the simulator itself doesn't break licensing rules - but using it does!

 

How is that different from using an IOS on a home lab of physical routers? I always assumed that if you buy a Cisco router from ebay, for example, you are not licensed to use the IOS that arrives installed on it. Has Cisco clarified this grey area?

 

No clarification needed. The IOS comes with the router - and, provided its installed on real Cisco hardware, rather than the moody far Eastern copies that are often sold on FleaBay, it doesn't matter whether you bought it, another company bought it or your nan bought it for your birthday - its legal and you are allowed to use it.

What you can't do is get an image of a Cisco IOS and load it up into a simulator. Without getting into a semantic argument about the rights and wrongs of that - it's illegal, that's all that matters.

 

Thanks for clearing that up Zeb.

Cheers mate.