Get Started

Everything in NetForge Labs runs in lightweight containers on your own machine. No hardware, no cloud bills, and zero background idle overhead.

Set this up once and every lab in every phase will run cleanly.

---

• 1 · Lab setup on macOS   start here

  ---

  OrbStack, Docker, containerlab and Arista cEOS on Apple Silicon. About 15 minutes, once.

  Set up your lab →

• 2 · Docker & containerlab

  ---

  How topology files (topology.clab.yml) work, and the deploy / destroy commands used in every lab.

  Read →

• 3 · How the lab works

  ---

  Deep dive into Linux network namespaces and virtual ethernet (veth) pairs that power containerlab topologies.

  Read →

• 4 · Hybrid execution model

  ---

  How to use automated ./run.sh step runners, line-by-line CLI copy-pasting, and clean container teardown (docker rm -f).

  Read →

---

Do the macOS setup first

The other pages assume a working containerlab host. Once lab setup is done, jump into any phase in Courses.

Once set up, jump straight into: - Phase 4 · VXLAN-EVPN Datacenter Fabrics - Phase 3.5 · Segment Routing & Ti-LFA - Phase 5 · Network Automation & CI/CD Pipelines