Most QEMU images must be renamed to virtioa.qcow2 to be recognized.
This is a legacy emulator used exclusively for older Cisco IOS images (such as Cisco 7200 routers). It is rarely used in modern labs but remains lightweight.
The Ultimate Guide to Safely Sourcing and Installing EVE-NG Vendor Images
This rule has a significant practical implication: many modern images, especially Cisco's advanced ones, are not available for free. As confirmed by Cisco, you generally need a proper Cisco.com account with the necessary entitlements to download them. A common workaround is to use community collections, but these must be obtained and used responsibly and strictly for educational, non-commercial purposes. Download All Eve-ng Images
Once you have the image files (typically .qcow2 , .bin , or .image ), follow these general steps : 1. Upload via SFTP How to load images - - EVE-NG
Create a simple download list ( urls.txt ):
Regularly check your available storage by running df -h in the EVE-NG CLI. Conclusion Most QEMU images must be renamed to virtioa
If you're manually adding a raw .qcow2 image, you must follow these crucial naming and directory rules, which are often the root cause of many issues:
This is the "secret sauce." You must run the following command in the EVE-NG CLI to make the image usable: /opt/unetlab/wrappers/unl_wrapper -a fixpermissions . 4. Verification and Lab Use
Start with one Cisco IOS image, add a Linux host, and ping across your first virtual link. The Ultimate Guide to Safely Sourcing and Installing
: Light-weight, high-performance binaries originally designed for internal Cisco engineers. They run natively on Linux, using minimal CPU and RAM while providing full Layer 2 and Layer 3 capabilities.
This is the most common format used for modern enterprise devices like Cisco Cisco modeling labs (CML), Arista, Palo Alto, and Fortinet.