Lab Guide

HP Network Simulator
A Comware OS Learning Tool

Table of contents
Hands on Lab Objectives ......................................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................. 2
Procedure Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 2
Procedure ................................................................................................................................................................ 3
Step 1: Install the simulator ............................................................................................................................... 4
Step 2: Create the simulation ............................................................................................................................. 5
Step 3: Launch the simulation ............................................................................................................................ 8
Step 4: Configure IRF........................................................................................................................................... 9
Step 5: Configure the parameters for Telnet management ............................................................................. 11
Step 6: Configure the network features ........................................................................................................... 12
Step 7: Verify the configuration ........................................................................................................................ 14
Step 8: Shut down the devices, close and delete the project ........................................................................... 15
Learn More............................................................................................................................................................. 16

Hands on Lab Objectives

During this activity you will learn how to:

install the HP Network Simulator on a Windows workstation

create and manage network simulation projects using the graphical user interface (GUI)
define simulated devices and links
launch a distributed simulation spanning two PCs
configure basic network features on Comware devices

Introduction
HP IRF (Intelligent Resilient Framework)
IRF is a virtualization technology that combines multiple physical devices (stackable and modular) into a single logical
device. More about IRF at http://h17007.www1.hp.com/docs/reports/irf.pdf
During this activity two groups of two learners each will create a distributed simulated network composed of four switches
and two routers as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Simulated network layout

Procedure Summary
The activity consists of the following steps:
Verify that Oracle VM VirtualBox is installed

Install HP Network Simulator

Create the network simulation project
o Open the HP Network Simulator GUI
o Enter the device and link definitions
o Save the project

Launch the network simulation project

o On the GUI click the Run button VirtualBox should open and show all 6 devices
o In VirtualBox start only the 3 devices on your host

Configure the network

o Configure the IRF-stack between the switches using the console
o Configure the parameters for Telnet using the console
o Complete the configuration using Telnet

Verify the configuration

Close and remove the devices from VirtualBox
Uninstall the HP Network Simulator

Procedure
Before starting join a group of four learners. Each group will use two PCs with two monitors each. Ask the Facilitator your
group number: ____.
Figure 2: Lab Groups

The procedure consists of the following steps:

1.

Install the simulator

2.

Create the simulation

3.

Launch the simulation

4.

Configure IRF

5.

Configure the parameters for Telnet management

6.

Configure the network features

7.

Verify the configuration

8.

Shut down the devices, close and delete the project

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

Step 1: Install the simulator

Verify that Oracle VM VirtualBox is installed. Look for the following icon:

On the desktop locate and run the file: HNS_7.1.50-Setup and follow the installation instructions accepting all the
default parameters

If the installation is successful you will find the following icon on your desktop:

Configure the IP Address of the PCs physical and VirtualBox NICs

Table 1: IP Addresses PC A

Device
PC A
PC B

Interface
Physical NIC
VirtualBox (virtual) NIC
Physical NIC
VirtualBox (virtual) NIC

IP Address
10.N.1.1
10.N.0.210
10.N.1.2
10.N.0.220

Mask
24
24
24
24

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

Step 2: Create the simulation

Note
As the simulation spans two PCs, the same project must be created on both PCs including the definition of all devices and links

From the desktop:

o Click on the HP Network Simulator icon to open the GUI.
o Identify all the icons on the GUI
Figure 3: HP Network Simulator GUI

You will use this tool to create the devices and links shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Devices, interfaces and links for group N

On the desktop locate and open the file: HP Network Simulator HOL - Gr n - PCx - Simulator
Script

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

 Create the project by copying the contents of this file to the GUI. You can copy and paste the whole text or enter each line
manually

Figure 5: Creating the network simulation project

Save the project

Analyze the commands you have copied and notice the following:
o Device models:
SIM1100: router with 3 GbE ports (2-4) and 4 Serial ports (5-8) and 1 Ethernet Management port (1)
SIM2100: stackable switch with 7 GbE ports (2-7) and 1 Ethernet Management port (1)
Table 2: Port types and numbering
1
SIM1100

M-Ethernet 1/0/1

SIM2100

M-Ethernet 1/0/1

o
o
o
o

Gig 0/0/2-4

Gig 0/0/5-8
Gig 1/0/2-8

memory size: this device parameter allocates the memory necessary for the Telnet server
host-ip: this device parameter allows devices on different PCs to communicate
Links: Compare the link commands with the links in Figure 4
host: this link parameter creates the connection used by the Telnet client on the PC server on the device to
communicate. It must be the name of the actual VirtualBox network interface as found in the vboxnet0 Properties

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

Figure 6 (Windows) : VirtualBox Host-only Network Properties window

Figure 7 (Ubuntu) : VirtualBox Host-only Network Properties window

Save the project by clicking on the Save icon

(name: hol_discover)

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

Step 3: Launch the simulation

On the GUI, launch the project by clicking on the Run icon
The VirtualBox Manager will open and the virtual machines of each device will be located under the hol_discover group
Figure 8: Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager

Note
Before continuing, ensure that the group members on the other PC have reached this same point.

Start the VMs of the devices on your PC

o On PC A: start device11, device12 and device13
o On PC B: start device21, device22 and device23

Watch the console window of each device and wait for the Started automatic configuration message
Click <Control-D> to break the retry cycle, then press <Enter>
To leave the VM window, press the right Ctrl key to release the cursor.
IMPORTANT
When using the console of a VM the mouse and the keyboard are captured by VirtualBox. To release them press the rightcontrol key.

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

Step 4: Configure IRF

IRF will allow your switches to behave as a single switching and routing entity. To configure IRF take the following steps
1. Change the device number of the second switch from 1 to 2
2. Configure the IRF-port on each switch
3. Reboot the first switch (it will become the IRF master device)
4. Reboot the second switch (it will become an IRF standby device)
5. Verify the IRF configuration and topology
Figure 9: IRF Configuration

On the second switch (Device13 on PC A, and Device 23 on PC B) enter the following commands:
system-view
irf member 1 renumber 2
quit
Save the configuration
save
Reboot the device
reboot

On the first switch (Device12 on PC A, and Device 22 on PC B) create the IRF-port 1/1. Enter the following commands:
system-view
irf-port 1/1
port group int gig 1/0/2
quit
int gig 1/0/2
undo shutdown
quit
o Save the configuration

On the second switch (Device13 on PC A, and Device 23 on PC B) create the IRF-port 2/2. Enter the following commands
(notice that the device number has changed from 1 to 2 and the port numbering has changed from 1/0/n to 2/0/n):
system-view
irf-port 2/2
port group int gig 2/0/2
quit
int gig 2/0/2
undo shutdown
quit
o Save the configuration
save

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

 Reboot the first switch (Device 12, 22) and after 15-20 seconds, reboot the second switch (Device 13, 23)
reboot

When both devices have completed the reboot, on the first enter:
display irf
display irf configuration
display irf topology
Figure 10: Logical topology after IRF configuration

Note
Once the IRF-stack is established, both switches behave as one and can be managed from the console of the IRF Master.

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

10

Step 5: Configure the parameters for Telnet management

On the router and the IRF-stack, take the following steps to make Telnet available
o Configure the Telnet interface and enable the Telnet server
system-view
user-interface vty 0 63
authentication-mode none
user-role network-admin
quit
telnet server enable
o Configure the IP address of the Ethernet management interface.

Note
Use the IP addresses shown in Table 3, replacing N with your group number.

Table 3: Management IP addresses

Router
IRF-stack

PC A
10.N.0.211/24
10.N.0.212/24

PC B
10.N.0.221/24
10.N.0.222/24

interface m-ethernet 1/0/1

ip address 10.N.0.2xx 24
quit
quit
o Save the configuration
save

Note
The rest of the configuration can be entered using a Telnet client utility: PUTTY. The advantage of using this tool is that it allows
to cut and paste commands to and from the CLI.

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

11

Step 6: Configure the network features

Figure 11: Network IP Configuration

Table 4: IP Addresses PC A

Device

Interface

IP Address

Mask Bits

Router

M-Ethernet 1/0/1

10.N.0.211

24

Serial 0/0/8

10.N.2.1

30

VLAN 1

10.N.11.2

32

Loopback 0

10.N.254.2

24

Switch 1

M-Ethernet 1/0/1

10.N.0.212

24

Switch 2

M-Ethernet 1/0/1

10.N.0.213

24

IRF (Switch 1 + 2)

M-Ethernet 1/0/1

10.N.0.212

24

VLAN 1

10.N.11.1

24

Loopback 0

10.N.254.1

24

Table 5: IP Addresses PC B

Device
Router

Switch 1
Switch 2
IRF (Switch 1 + 2)

Interface
M-Ethernet 1/0/1
Serial 0/0/8
VLAN 1
Loopback 0
M-Ethernet 1/0/1
M-Ethernet 1/0/1
M-Ethernet 1/0/1
VLAN 1
Loopback 0

IP Address
10.N.0.221
10.N.2.2
10.N.13.2
10.N.254.3
10.N.0.222
10.N.0.223
10.N.0.222
10.N.13.1
10.N.254.4

Mask Bits
24
30
32
24
24
24
24
24
24

Configure the router

o Open PUTTY and connect to the Router
o On the desktop locate and open the HP Network Simulator Comware Configuration text file

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

12

o Copy the router section from the file and paste it on the Telnet client
o Save the configuration

Configure the IRF-stack

o Open a second PUTTY session and connect to the Router
o Copy the switch section from the file and paste it on the CLI
o Save the configuration

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

13

Step 7: Verify the configuration

Note
Before continuing, ensure that the group members on the other PC have reached this same point. Perform the following steps
in synchronization with the other group members and compare results.

Verify that the all the interfaces are up.

display interface brief

Verify that all the routes have been established

display ip routing-table

Verify IP connectivity. From the console of the IRF-stack ping the loopback address of the IRF-stack on the other PC
ping 10.N.254.x

If ping fails, troubleshoot. Call the facilitator for help if needed

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

14

Step 8: Shut down the devices, close and delete the project
Make sure that the other members of your group have finished testing the network
Close the Telnet windows
Close the VirtualBox VMs
Close the VirtualBox Manager
From the HP Network Simulator GUI delete the project by clicking on the remove icon
Close the GUI

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Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

15

Learn More
hp.com/networking
hp.com/networking/library
HP Network Simulator for Comware Devices download page

Sign up for updates

hp.com/go/getupdated
Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for
HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as
constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Trademark acknowledgments, if needed.

16