The Cisco Catalyst 9000V (Cat9KV) Virtual Router addresses these modern infrastructure challenges by bringing Cisco's robust IOS-XE operating system into a virtualised form factor. Specifically, specific deployment images like represent highly stable, production-ready iterations designed for QEMU/KVM hypervisor environments.
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It runs the same IOS XE code as physical switches (Cat 9200, 9300, 9400, 9500), ensuring consistent configuration, management, and behavior. cat9kvprd171201prd9qcow2
– Possibly a specific hardware ASIC or board revision within Cisco’s Switch line (e.g., UADP 2.0 ASICs have variants like 8Q , 9Q ).
Keep in mind that the date code 171201 suggests this image runs an older IOS XE version (likely 16.6 or 16.9 train). Later releases may have higher resource requirements. Also, data-plane forwarding in a virtual switch is emulated, so throughput will be far lower than physical hardware – typically tens of Mbps. The Cisco Catalyst 9000V (Cat9KV) Virtual Router addresses
Download the official directly from the GNS3 Marketplace .
Through the GNS3 Marketplace , you can download the . Importing this template automatically flags the correct MD5 checksum, maps the node requirements to 24GB RAM, and links the local QCOW2 file natively into your local or remote server engine. 3. DevOps & Containerlab – Possibly a specific hardware ASIC or board
The technical identifier represents a specific, high-value image file utilized in modern enterprise networking, specifically within the Cisco Catalyst 9000V (Catalyst 9k) ecosystem [1]. As organizations shift toward hybrid cloud and virtualized infrastructure, understanding this specific file type—a QCOW2 image—is crucial for network engineers and IT architects deploying Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) and virtualized Cisco IOS XE routers.
By default, the VM has one virtio NIC. Add more interfaces in your hypervisor:
: The file format, specifically "QEMU Copy On Write." This is the standard disk image format for KVM-based hypervisors like GNS3, EVE-NG, or OpenStack. Why the QCOW2 Format Matters