Saturday, August 24, 2013

GNS3 - Configuring ASA on GNS3

I generally use GNS3 to emulate routers but recently I have been using it to do some ASA labs. So here is how I emulate ASAs on GNS3.

First thing to take care of is acquiring the ASA images needed to emulate an ASA. Files needed can be downloaded here.

Once you've downloaded the files it is time to configure GNS3 to run the ASA. Follow the screenshots.




Qemu Options: -vnc none -vga none -m 1024 -icount auto -hdachs 980,16,32
Kernel cmd line: -append ide_generic.probe_mask=0x01 ide_core.chs=0.0:980,16,32 auto nousb console=ttyS0,9600 bigphysarea=65536

Now click "SAVE" and "OK".


Drag and drop an ASA and hit run. You should now be able to console into your ASA.



The enable password is blank and no it is not the word blank :) Some features such as the failover are disabled by default and if you want to activate all of the features then type these 2 commands.

activation-key 0x4a3ec071 0x0d86fbf6 0x7cb1bc48 0x8b48b8b0 0xf317c0b5
activation-key 0xb23bcf4a 0x1c713b4f 0x7d53bcbc 0xc4f8d09c 0x0e24c6b6

Please note that it will take about 15 minutes to complete the license setup. Once the key is verified you can use all the features such as failover.

If you wanted to run multiple ASAs then edit this line accordingly on the ASAs

Qemu Options: -vnc :2 none -vga none -m 1024 -icount auto -hdachs 980,16,32

When you reboot/boot your ASA it does take a while to boot and it may appear as though it is stuck but just give it a few mins (5-10).

Many more articles to come so stay tuned.

Please reshare/subscribe/comment/+1 if you like my posts as it keeps me motivated to write more and spread the knowledge.

43 comments:

  1. I have this error when trying to start the asa:

    ASA1: lost communication with server 127.0.0.1:10525

    running gns3 8.4 on debian as root

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I forgot to mention. You will get that error. Once you get that error message, stop the ASA and start it. Once it loads do a "show version" and you will see all the features are now enabled.

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    2. I have the same problem, but something different is happening. You said that when we see that error we have to stop and start it but it never starts.


      repot_sirc@yahoo.com

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    3. install qemu to Programfiles/GNS3 directory

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  2. Hi Arwin

    This is the best explanation and components you have provide. I have tried from some others guys ASA setup on GNS3 but they were not easy and stable like yours.

    Many thanks and keep posting about ASA.

    Now I have managed the basic setup and will try bit complex like your LAB.

    Cheers.
    Vinod

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I am glad to help..I do have more blogs coming on ASAs.

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  3. Hi

    Everything works well according to the steps you have mentioned above Thanks. but... If I close GNS3 and reopen and start the ASA all the features are again disabled so, do we have to copy and paste the activation-key on the ASA all the time we start GNS3??? Pls help me in this..

    Await ur reply

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great question!! Unfortunately I haven't found a way to make this persistent. However when I know ahead of time that I am going to use an ASA I copy the project folder that I created to enable the ASA license and use that as my base project.

      For example before I enabled the ASA license I saved my project as "testASA". So when I want to use an ASA, I copy the project "testASA" folder and create another folder called "whatever" then double click the .NET file from the "whatever" project folder and work from there.

      Do you know what I mean?

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  4. Oh!!

    Anyway thank you very much, atleast the license is working thats a big relief...

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  5. May I know why does my console stuck at the point where it's "restarting system."?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mine keeps doing this not sure what is wrong, please help.
    -----------------------------------------------
    REBOOT: open message queue fail: No such file or directory/2
    REBOOT: enforce reboot...
    Restarting system.
    machine restart
    -----------------------------------------------
    REBOOT: open message queue fail: No such file or directory/2
    REBOOT: enforce reboot...
    Restarting system.
    machine restart

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please make sure you have this in correctly in the ASA configuration page especially the kernel cmd line.

      Qemu Options: -vnc none -vga none -m 1024 -icount auto -hdachs 980,16,32

      Kernel cmd line: -append ide_generic.probe_mask=0x01 ide_core.chs=0.0:980,16,32 auto nousb console=ttyS0,9600 bigphysarea=65536

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  7. I have an issue with multiple ASA.

    When I set up multiple ASA, one of the hangs in the middle of configuration. It starts up fine but later when I am putting commands in it it stops responding and hangs.

    I have tried on 3 different machines with the same result. PLEASE HELP>

    ReplyDelete
  8. i didnt know how to attach screen shots, here is a link to a post on GNS3 forums:

    http://forum.gns3.net/post23213.html#p23213

    Please help as I am starting to think it is not possible to run 2 ASA's in GNS3.
    I am also surprised that no one else has this issue.. I have tried it on now 4 machines on different GNS3 versions and I have got exact same result on all of them.

    I hope its just a stupid configuration issue.

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've made tutorials with 2 ASA such as the ASA HA setup on my blogs and it works. So 2 ASAs is not an issue.

      Sorry I am not sure what your issue might be :(

      Delete
  9. Hi
    I have a strange issue. I have a save topology with one ASA and it works fine everytime.
    I have another topology built from the previous one, that includes 3 routers. This one worked great for hours the day I created it. Since then the ASA will never stay up, always either freezing or coredumping.
    If I revert back to the original one ASA setup, no issues!...
    I tried deleting all the files in the gns3 project / working folder, no improvement.

    any ideas??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry I am not sure. I used windows 7 .. most recent version of gns3 and the files provided for the ASA and I was able to configure a couple of routers and a couple of ASAs. Granted that I don't leave it running for hours I am not sure what the problem might be. I'll see if I can leave the topology up and running for hours and recreate the issue.

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  10. Kevin from Dallas TXNovember 6, 2013 at 2:57 AM

    I had trouble with other posts where my terminal would not show anything after consoling in. Your tutorial worked perfectly. Everything needed to get ASA on GNS3 working is here. Good work!

    ReplyDelete
  11. When I start ASA the qemu popup does not happen...can you help?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No putty or anything? If that's the cas, check your terminal settings on GNS3.

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  12. Arwin

    I install 0.8.6 Windows 64 bit then install Qemu 32 bit, follow ur instruction. starting qemu and dynamips are succesfull. When start asa, icon change to green but the console is blank...it's not starting up.

    i'm running on windows server 2008 (64 bit). Is this because the Qemu is 32 bit only ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sometimes it does take a while for it come up .. email some screen shots to arwinr@gmail.com and I'll take a look.

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    2. I wait for long time (1 hours)...and on console, show this error:

      <0>Kernel panic - not syncing: invalid compressed format (err=1)

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  13. Hi Arwin,

    ASA is stuck at after below lines..Waited for long time but no response further ..Can you help me out on this ?

    Freeing unused kernel memory: 156k freed
    Write protecting the kernel text: 1716k
    Write protecting the kernel read-only data: 504k

    Thanks
    Keyur

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hi,

    I have a strange issue: The interface on my ASA is gigabit ethernet and one on the router is fastethernet. I am unable to connect the ASA to Routers / Switches as i get the error: hot connection interfaces not permitted. Any solution? Anybody encountered such a problem before? Any solution would be appreciated

    I am using 842 IOS and the latest GNS3.

    Thanks
    Shri

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  15. Hi Arwin,

    I will try to install ASDM 7.15 on ASA8.4.2...everytime when click launch ASDM...the link from my notebook to ASA got terminated....from the wireshark captured it seems there is FCS checksum error...

    Is a bug? I am running GNS3 0.8.6 on win 7..




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  16. This manual perfectly work for me.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hi,
    I have problem with this, i setup my (correctly) ASA but i do not have any connection from ASA to my loopback int.
    ( my firewall is disabled), do you have any ideas about my problem?

    Best regard

    ReplyDelete
  18. Can anyone help me out I am struggling for the last 3 days to setup and configure ASA 842 on GNS3 (all in one). Mostly says connection lost when in drag asa icon. My system is windows 7 64 bit, and 4gb ram.
    Many thanks

    ReplyDelete
  19. Have tried every other settings as specified in this page. But still no luck with the second ASA, I use the same Image files( ASA842-initrd and ASA842-vmlinuz ) and the GNS3 0.8.2 with Qemu Patched with 13.0 ( and also tried with GNS3 0.8.6 latest with Qemu 11 and 13.0 ) , I get the error as Qemu stopped working and crash as soon as the second ASA is been started. 1st ASA works fine without any issues. Any Suggestions please ?

    (My config is very simple Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB DRAM and Win7, with Using the USB 4GB Transcend Drive as the ReadyBoost)

    This is the Error I get while starting the Second ASA.

    Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
    Application Name: qemu.exe
    Application Version: 0.0.0.0
    Application Timestamp: 4d19e786
    Fault Module Name: qemu.exe
    Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
    Fault Module Timestamp: 4d19e786
    Exception Code: 40000015
    Exception Offset: 00020e43
    OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
    Locale ID: 1033
    Additional Information 1: b421
    Additional Information 2: b421c07f09a1298958235429c653e9c9
    Additional Information 3: ac92
    Additional Information 4: ac92b178eb5a984f5e4b564bfd0df453

    Any suggestions are welcome

    Ram.

    ReplyDelete
  20. New question on GNS3 with ASA and ASDM

    I am running GNS3 with multiple ASA's and have been fortunate not to have any issues running the 2nd ASA. What I am having a problem with is lack of knowledge on how to get ASDM working with the 2nd ASA.
    It works fine with the first but have not been successful adding 2nd loopbacks and cloud interfaces.

    Anyone get multiple ASDM images to connect with Windows 7?
    If so how did you get it to work?

    thanks

    ReplyDelete
  21. I appreciate your tutorial. But on boot, it stops at loaded

    e1000: 0000:00:06.0: e1000_probe: (PCI:33MHz:32-bit) 00:00:ab:39:8d:04
    e1000: eth4: e1000_probe: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection
    e1000: 0000:00:07.0: e1000_probe: (PCI:33MHz:32-bit) 00:00:ab:d6:11:05
    e1000: eth5: e1000_probe: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection
    e100: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Driver, 3.5.23-k6-NAPI
    e100: Copyright(c) 1999-2006 Intel Corporation
    loaded.

    and it will restart all over again....

    what is the cause?

    ReplyDelete
  22. If your using the examples in this very helpful article, realise that you are specifying 1GB of RAM per ASA (that's the -m 1024 setting) refer to http://wiki.qemu.org/download/qemu-doc.html for more information or try a lower memory value.

    My 8GB RAM, Core i7 laptop running Win7 x64 can run 2 ASA simultaneously and interact with both without issues and using the settings specified here.

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  23. Perfect .... Every thing is working fine with 2 ASA .............windows 7 ultimate and windows 8.1 ....no problem at all...

    ReplyDelete
  24. Hello Arwin.

    First off thanks alot for the help.. I got everything running up til the point where ASDM initializes the ASA:

    I the following Error:

    ASDM did not recognize device model ASA 5520.

    Has this happend to anyone else ? and have someone found a solution ??

    ReplyDelete
  25. Hi Arwin,

    Is it true we need to issue 'Activation Key' command everytime? can we make the full license permanent? Thank You.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You shouldn't have to do the activation key everytime as long as you save the project. Is that not the case?

      Delete
  26. hi...can anyone please help me for asa firewall...it always get hanged when i configure it in gns3...i did the steps mentioned at the beginning of this article...kindly help...thanx in advance...

    ReplyDelete
  27. Hi Arwin,
    Now I can boot ASA successfully but...
    When I enter Activation Code just after hitting Enter, it shows the message below.

    # show activation
    -ash: show: not found
    # show activation-key
    -ash: show: not found
    # show activation-key
    -ash: show: not found
    #
    # activation-key 0x4a3ec071 0x0d86fbf6 0x7cb1bc48 0x8b48b8b0 0xf317c0b5
    -ash: activation-key: not found
    # activation-key 0xb23bcf4a 0x1c713b4f 0x7d53bcbc 0xc4f8d09c 0x0e24c6b6
    -ash: activation-key: not found

    How do you activate it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have not seen this before. I am assuming you are in enable mode correct?

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