For network architects designing large-scale topologies, importing cat9kv-prd-17.12.01prd9.qcow2 into Eve-NG or GNS3 provides a perfect, feature-complete sandbox to test configurations, evaluate BGP scaling, or simulate SD-WAN policy deployments before pushing them to physical Catalyst 8000 hardware. Quick Start: Basic KVM Deployment via CLI
: Complete integration with Model-Driven Telemetry, NETCONF, RESTCONF, and YANG Suite testing tools.
: Denotes the specific engineering production rebuild or patch spin (Build 9) within the 17.12.1 release cycle, containing targeted stability fixes. cat9kv-prd-17.12.01prd9.qcow2
Demystifying the cat9kv-prd-17.12.01prd9.qcow2 Virtual Appliance
Because it boots a complete enterprise operating system, this image is resource-intensive. Attempting to cut corners on allocations will cause the virtual switch to crash during bootup or drop into a continuous reboot loop. Recommended Specification 4 vCPUs (Minimum) System RAM 18 GB RAM per node Disk Size ~2.7 GB (Compressed package size) Ethernet Interfaces Up to 25 ports (1 Management + 24 Dataplane) Supported Features vs. Lab Constraints Demystifying the cat9kv-prd-17
It supports different boot modes, including UADP (Unified Access Data Plane) and Q200 (Silicon One) emulated data planes .
Create a directory following the required naming convention (e.g., /opt/unetlab/addons/qemu/cat9kv-17.12.01/ ). Upload the image and rename it to virtioa.qcow2 . Lab Constraints It supports different boot modes, including
| Feature | UADP Emulation (25 ports) | Q200 Emulation (25 ports) | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | | 4 | 4 | | RAM Required | 18,432 MB (18 GB) | 12,288 MB (12 GB) | | Disk Space | ~4 GB (the image itself) + additional config space | ~4 GB | | Dataplane Throughput | Limited (~250 Kbps) in beta versions | Limited (~250 Kbps) | | Supported Hypervisor | KVM / QEMU (via EVE-NG, CML, containerlab) | KVM / QEMU |
: Upload the file to your virtualization server (e.g., via SFTP to /opt/unetlab/addons/qemu/ on EVE-NG).
