Tuesday, 4 November 2014

Windows 8 Loopback for GNS3 (Step-By-Step)

12:34 Posted by Jurgens Krause , , , , 2 comments
If you are running GNP3 on Windows 8, you may have noticed that the old method of installing and configuring a loopback device does not work the same as it used to.

You may get the following error:

"unable to create generic ethernet NIO"

So, here are the steps to get it working:



Hit "Win+r" to open the Run dialog:

Type: "hdwwiz" and click "OK"
This will launch the "Add Hardware Wizard"


Select "Install the hardware that I manually select form a list" and click Next

Select "Network Adapters" and click Next

Select "Microsoft" in the left hand pane, and select "Microsoft KM-TEST Loopback Adapter" in the right hand pane.

Finish out the wizard.


IMPORTANT!! - Reboot the computer

Once you have rebooted, open your network connections.
I like to rename the adapter appropriately:


I changed the name to GNS Loopback. You may call it whatever you like.


Assign an IP Address to the card. I use a local private address as follows, The gateway is the IP that I will later assign to an emulated Cisco device. It makes sense for my purposes, but your needs may be different.

You can now open GNS3 and add a Cloud Interface.
In the cloud configuration screen, add the loopback adapter and click apply. you can now connect to the cloud interface from a Cisco emulated router.

2 comments:

  1. I've been using the method you're describing in Windows 8 without incident for almost a year until recently... After having reset my PC back to factory default due to it being "laggy," I've now lost the ability to have my loopback adapters I create communicate with GNS3.

    Are you not experiencing "any" problems at all using Windows 8 with your loopback adapters?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Jay,
    For me this works perfectly, I have had no issues with it.

    ReplyDelete