Lab 1.3: Connecting WinBox to GNS3 VM

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In this lab, we are going to download the MikroTik WinBox configuration tool and use it connect and configure our GNS3 MikroTik CHR appliance(s).

Step 1: Download the WinBox application
Link to page: MikroTik Routers and Wireless - Software
Direct Download Link: https://mt.lv/winbox64

Download WinBox application from MikroTik website

Step 2: We need to make a slight change to the configuration of our hosted VM in VirtualBox. We are going to add two additional network interface(s) to our VM, which will allow us a total of 4 network interfaces for the VM. This will allow us to attach 3 routers directly accessible to our machine from the VM. To do so, open VirtualBox, and if the GNS3 VM is running, we need to shut it down.

Ensure that the GNS3 VM is powered off before proceeding to the next step

Step 3: Open the Settings for this virtual machine by clicking the Settings button in the VM menu bar.

Open VM Settings

Step 4: Under Settings -> Network, Select Adapter 3 and enable the adapter and change the adapter type to Host-only Adapter and the name to VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter. This will you to access the VM appliances from your local machine over the virtual host adapter 3. Repeat the previous step for Adapter 4.

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You must ensure promiscious mode is enabled on the adapters you’ve assigned to GNS3 VM. This bypasses security to enable frames with mac addresses not assigned to the NIC (your GNS3 devices will have different mac addresses). Enable Promiscuous mode and set to allow all as shown below. Otherwise, you will not be able to ping/arp the network device.
Configuration of the virtual network adapters.

Click OK once this is complete.