Ostinato for Containerlab

Containerlab is a labbing platform for orchestrating and managing container-based networking labs. It starts the NOS containers, builds virtual wiring between them to create lab topologies and manages labs lifecycle.

You can add a traffic generator container to a lab using Ostinato for Containerlab.

How to install Ostinato for ContainerLab

docker load -i docker-ostinato-{tag}.tgz

Use docker images to verify ostinato/ostinato is listed -

$ docker images
REPOSITORY                    TAG        IMAGE ID       CREATED        SIZE
ostinato/ostinato             v1.2.0-0   914a960b8124   19 hours ago   751MB
<none>                        <none>     2a0175a90aba   19 hours ago   754MB
<none>                        <none>     edc5c451a16f   44 hours ago   751MB
<none>                        <none>     908a68fb0900   47 hours ago   754MB
ubuntu                        22.04      6b7dfa7e8fdb   3 weeks ago    77.8MB
ghcr.io/nokia/srlinux         latest     db41df9a3ad0   4 weeks ago    2.8GB
$

How to use Ostinato for ContainerLab

Add a topology node definition in .clab.yml as follows -

. . .
topology:
  nodes:
    ost:
      kind: linux
      image: ostinato/ostinato:{tag}
      ports:
        - 5900:5900/tcp
        - 7878:7878/tcp
. . .

Replace {tag} above with the tag shown in the output of docker images.

For links use ethernet interface names of the form eth1, eth2 and so on.

VNC access

Once the lab is deployed, connect a VNC client to <host-ip>:5900 - this will bring up the Ostinato GUI (eth0 will not be shown in the GUI since it is the mgmt interface).

Screenshot

Click to enlarge

Native GUI access

If you have a multi-node or hybrid topology (or if you find VNC clumsy), you can use a native Ostinato GUI for your OS to connect to the ostinato node in containerlab - in the Ostinato GUI, use File | New PortGroup and enter the DNS name or IP address of your host(s).

The native Ostinato GUI controller is NOT included with this package and needs to be purchased separately.