containerlab-free-labs

Free Containerlab Network Labs

Hands-on network labs that run in seconds, not hours. Built with Containerlab and FRR so you can practice real routing protocols without expensive hardware or heavy VMs.

Run the labs with an AI network engineer

The future of network engineering is agentic. AI agents that diagnose faults, generate configs, and troubleshoot alongside you aren’t coming — they’re here. Engineers who learn to work with them now will lead the teams that depend on them later.

Damira AI is a network operations assistant that runs inside your editor. In Cursor it installs in about 60 seconds, no signup:

agent plugin marketplace add https://github.com/ciscoittech/damira-plugins

Then /plugins in the agent (or Settings → Plugins) and install damira. A shared demo key is built in — 50 queries/day, no credit card.

By default Damira runs in advisor mode: it hands you the exact commands and reads the output you paste back. That is the correct setting against a production network. These labs are not production, so you can let it drive instead:

export DAMIRA_EXECUTION_MODE=lab    # this shell only — see the warning below

In lab mode it opens the SSH sessions itself, runs the show commands, and works a fault down to root cause while you watch. Give it the whole problem — “R1 has no OSPF neighbors, I’m in ospf-basics” — instead of a pasted routing table. That supervision loop is the actual skill worth practicing.

⚠️ Export DAMIRA_EXECUTION_MODE per shell — never in ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc. Lab mode is the switch that lets the agent open SSH sessions at all; a plugin hook blocks them otherwise. Leave it set globally and the guard is also off the next morning when you’re on a real network. Advisor mode is the default for a reason.

Using Codespaces, VS Code, or Claude Code instead? See DAMIRA_SETUP.md.

Having trouble with Damira? Open an issue — we respond fast.

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What’s This?

If you’ve ever spent hours setting up GNS3 or EVE-NG just to practice OSPF, this is for you. Each lab spins up a full network topology using Docker containers in about 30 seconds. You get real router CLIs, real routing protocols, and real troubleshooting — without the overhead.

How it compares:

	Containerlab (this repo)	GNS3 / EVE-NG
Memory per router	~50 MB	1 GB+
Startup time	~30 seconds	10+ minutes
Setup	git clone + one command	Download ISOs, configure VMs, pray
Cost	Free	Free (but needs beefy hardware)

Perfect for CCNA, CCNP, and anyone learning network engineering.

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Labs

Six labs, beginner to advanced. Each one includes automated validation so you know when you’ve got it right.

Lab	Level	Time	What You’ll Learn
Linux Network Namespaces	Beginner	30 min	How containers create isolated networks under the hood
OSPF Basics	Beginner	45 min	Single-area OSPF, neighbor adjacency, DR/BDR election
BGP eBGP Basics	Beginner	60 min	eBGP peering across 3 autonomous systems, AS-path
VyOS Firewall Basics	Beginner	45 min	Zone-based firewall, traffic filtering, NAT
Zero Trust Fundamentals	Intermediate	45 min	JWT auth, microservices, identity-based access
Enterprise VPN Migration	Advanced	90 min	16-container, 2-site GRE VPN migration with rollback

Recommended order

Start at the top and work your way down. Each lab builds on concepts from the previous ones.

1. Linux Namespaces — understand how containerlab works under the hood
2. OSPF — your first routing protocol
3. BGP — how the internet routes traffic between networks
4. Firewall — add security between zones
5. Zero Trust — modern identity-based access control
6. Enterprise VPN — put it all together in a real-world migration scenario

Every lab has its own management network and subnet, so you can leave one deployed while you start the next. Nothing collides.

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Quick Start

Option 1: GitHub Codespaces (easiest)

Click the button above. That’s it. Everything is pre-installed.

Option 2: Run locally

# Install containerlab (Linux or Mac)
bash -c "$(curl -sL https://get.containerlab.dev)"

# Clone and build
git clone https://github.com/ciscoittech/containerlab-free-labs.git
cd containerlab-free-labs
./build-frr-ssh.sh    # builds the router image (first time only)

# Pick a lab and deploy
cd ospf-basics
./scripts/deploy.sh

# SSH into a router — you'll land right at the CLI
ssh -p 2221 admin@localhost
# Password: cisco

# Check your work
./scripts/validate.sh

# When you're done
./scripts/cleanup.sh

Every lab follows the same three scripts: deploy.sh, validate.sh, cleanup.sh. CI runs each lab’s full validation suite on every push, so a green badge means the assertions actually ran and actually passed.

Requirements

• Docker and containerlab on Linux, or Docker Desktop / OrbStack on macOS
• ~2 GB free RAM for the small labs, ~4 GB for the 16-container VPN migration

Apple Silicon: the FRR router image is built from a multi-arch base (quay.io/frrouting/frr:10.4.4), so the five FRR-based labs run natively on M-series Macs — no emulation.

VyOS firewall lab: the VyOS container image is linux/amd64 only, so on Apple Silicon it runs under emulation or not at all. It also needs the br_netfilter kernel module on the host — VyOS sets net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-* on every firewall commit, and those sysctl keys don’t exist until the module is loaded. Without it the commit fails silently and the firewall permits everything. scripts/deploy.sh loads it for you:

sudo modprobe br_netfilter

Accessing Routers

Every FRR router has SSH enabled. Login and you land directly at the router CLI, just like a real Cisco or Juniper box.

$ ssh -p 2221 admin@localhost
Password: cisco

r1# show ip ospf neighbor
r1# show ip route
r1# show ip bgp summary

Credentials: admin / cisco

Lab	Routers	SSH ports
OSPF Basics	r1–r3	2221–2223
BGP eBGP Basics	r1–r4	2211–2214
Enterprise VPN Migration	router-a1/a2, router-b1/b2, internet-core	2231–2235

Scripted access works the same way, which is what CI checks on every run — and what lets an AI assistant in lab mode read device state for itself:

ssh -p 2221 admin@localhost "show ip ospf neighbor"

Need a Linux shell on the box — tcpdump, editing files, scp, VS Code Remote-SSH? admin is the router CLI and has no shell, so use the labshell account instead:

ssh -p 2221 labshell@localhost     # password: cisco

Or go in directly with Docker: docker exec -it clab-ospf-basics-r1 vtysh (router CLI) or docker exec -it clab-ospf-basics-r1 bash (shell).

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Who This Is For

• CCNA / CCNP students — practice routing protocols with Cisco-like CLI syntax
• Network engineers — spin up quick topologies to test ideas
• Career switchers — learn networking hands-on without buying hardware
• Instructors — give students lab environments that just work

Contributing

Got an idea for a lab? Found a bug? PRs are welcome.

1. Fork this repo
2. Create a branch (git checkout -b feature/my-lab)
3. Test it (cd <lab> && ./scripts/validate.sh, or ./scripts/test-all-labs.sh for everything)
4. Open a PR

A validation script that can’t fail is worse than no validation script. If you add checks, make sure a broken lab actually turns them red. See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

Resources

• Containerlab Docs — the tool that makes this possible
• FRRouting Docs — the routing suite behind the router CLIs
• Codespaces Guide — detailed setup for GitHub Codespaces
• Damira AI setup — using the AI assistant with these labs

License

MIT — use these labs for learning, teaching, corporate training, whatever you want.