MikroTik RouterOS has piqued my interest lately, but before committing to buying some hardware I’d like to dabble. Fortunately MikroTik offers RouterOS x86, which allows you to install their OS on any x86 box. I have a PCEngines APU3 lying around which is the perfect little device for this. One problem though, the APU3 does not have a VGA out which is what RouterOS expects the user to use to install the OS.
EVE-NG has multiple deployment methods with mostly references to starting from an iSO or OVF. You can also start from a fresh Ubuntu 22.04 install, then run the installation script to install EVE-NG. You can see these instructions in the Pro or Community Cookbook.
The ability to start from an Ubuntu install and then install EVE-NG on top means we can install it inside an LXC container! However, it’s not as simple due to the fact a LXC container is NOT a virtual machine. We will need to tweak the configuration to allow nesting and to allow cgroups in the LXC container.
PicOS-V is the free virtual machine provided by Pica8 that allows you to experiment with their NOS.
Having virtual images for various NOS is hugely beneficial for learning. PicOS is the one I’ve recently stumbled upon.
A GNS3 qcow2 image is provided as well as directions for loading it into GNS3. However nothing for EVE-NG is provided, but fortunately it’s easy to create a custom template and get it loaded in.
EVE-NG has documentation on how set up Linux nodes, but provides prepared images. This is helpful, but the latest Ubuntu image is 20.04.2 and we don’t know the origins of these images.
Fortunately, it’s easy to get Ubuntu and Debian cloud images working in EVE-NG
We will need to create a custom template as we will want some options that aren’t specified in the Linux one
