Hello people,

why look around for a pirated packet tracer. download the gns3 all in one, it is very beautiful and works like a charm in Vista. All your CCNA lab practice, building complex topologies and experiments can be done in GNS3 with drag and drop features. GNS3 works with a real cisco IOS image, so you get to practice each and every possible command.

Prereqs:

• ->First get a Cisco IOS image file from any of your friends who own a cisco router.

Install Telnet client:

• ->Open control panel/Programs/programs and feature OR just type "appwiz.cpl" in the RUN window and hit enter, that will open the 'programs and features' window
• ->In this window, on the left panel click on 'Turn windows features on or off'
• ->That will open 'windows features' window, in that tick mark the 'telnet client' and then click OK. It'll take some time to install the telnet client. Done with telnet client.

Now lets make sure if your telnet client is working: (courtesy: www.thundernews.com)

• ->open command prompt.
• ->type "telnet news.thundernews.com 119", hit enter, if you see 'welcome or connected' your telnet client is working.
• -> If that didn't work you can try with these different port no.'s instead of 119, they are 119, 7000, 8000, 9000, 23, 25, 80, or 3128.

Now the stage is set, lets move on to installing GNS3:

1. Download the gns3 all in one here
2. Click on the downloaded file and run it (installation)
   
3. I'd suggest to choose 4 options in the "components to install"
4. After installation, type 'gns3' in windows start menu bar, click on it, opens gns3
5. You get two options, click on 1
6. In the window provide a working directory path, then click on 'test' button, you should see 'dynamips successfully started', then click apply and then ok.
   
7. Now click on button 2, you'll get "IOS images and Hypervisors" window, in 'image file' section provide the path to Cisco IOS image on your computer. Then click OK and then apply. Depending on the IOS version, the platform and model fields gets automatically populated. Take note of the model. we're done.

Now we're at the GNS3 main window, lets make use of it.

• Now, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open 'windows task manager' and minimise it.
• In the left panel you can see all kinds of network devices. Drag a router model which your IOS supports, right click on it, click start.
• From the 'windows task manager' you'll notice that your CPU usage goes upto 60% or even more. To fix this, right click on your router, click 'idle pc', let it calculate a value, choose any one from the list with '*' mark, see if your CPU usage drops down to somewhere around 10%, if not repeat this until it drops and dont forget to be patient for it is possible!
• After that, right click on your router, choose 'console', that opens a telnet session to your router. This is as good as telnetting any real router so now you can use what you learned or do whatever.