In recent years, my focus has shifted towards network automation. I still need a unified network emulator platform, but the prerequisites have evolved. Before diving into the new requirements, let’s highlight the limitations of UNetLab:

• Per Host Pod Limit: Each host can run up to 256 independent pods due to the console port limit.
• Per Lab Node Limit: Each pod/lab can run up to 127 nodes due to the console port limit.
• Per User Pod Limit: Each user can run only one pod/lab at a time due to the console port limit.
• Single Host: No support for distributed installations of UNetLab (OVS can be used, but many frame types are filtered by default).
• Config Management: Using expect scripts for getting and putting startup-configs is slow, non-predictive, and cannot cover all node types.
• No Support for Dynamips Serial Interfaces.
• No Topology Changes: Topology changes are not allowed while the lab is running, by design.

The console port limit exists because each node console has a fixed port calculated as follows:

ts_port = 32768 + 128 * tenant_id + device_id

Additionally, no more than 512 IOL nodes can run in the same lab because the device_id must be unique for each tenant.

UNetLab v2 must address these issues and meet new requirements:

• Run a distributed lab (across local or geographically distributed nodes).
• Support an unlimited number of nodes in a lab.
• Allow each user to customize a lab without affecting the original copy.
• Link serial interfaces between IOL and Dynamips.
• Configure nodes via Ansible/NAPALM/other tools.

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