Lab-O-Matic: A Language Description for Labs

labomatic is a tool to configure and run a lab. It aims to provide a singular point in the lab creation space:

• use configuration-as-code (versioning, …)
• the network structure is described using Python (Starlark)
• all systems are image-based, with a new well-known images
• we only aim to emulate SME-level infrastructure
• QEMU + netlink
• minimalist

Other tools (netlab, containerlab, …) will make different choices.

First install (Ubuntu)

NOTE: all those steps are meant to be automated too.

The Ubuntu image from upstream needs to be configured to accept authentication.

https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/minimal/releases/jammy/release/ubuntu-22.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64.img

2. Generate the seed image

cloud-localds seed.img user-data.yaml metadata.yaml

3. Run the VM

sudo qemu-system-x86_64
-machine accel=kvm,type=q35
-cpu host
-m 2G
-nographic
-device virtio-net-pci,netdev=net0
-netdev user,id=net0
-drive if=virtio,format=qcow2,file=/tmp/ubuntu-22.04-minimal-cloudimg-amd64.img
-drive if=virtio,format=raw,file=seed.img

run

sudo systemctl disable systemd-networkd-wait-online.service sudo systemctl mask systemd-networkd-wait-online.service