Connect Packet Tracer to a real network

: Last Updated: 18 August 2023

PTBridge - Connect a Packet Tracer lab network to a real network

Description

PTBridge allows traffic bridging between virtual packet tracer networks and the real network connected to the PC running Cisco Packet Tracer. This java add-on translates packets and keeps states for the protocol translation, as Packet Tracer packets and protocols have been implemented with significant differences to real ones. This difference between real and simulated network protocols explains why PTBridge only handles a small subset of the networkprotocols implemented.

It is not possible to pass generic data through pt networks, like over udp or tcp.

Supported network protocols :

Ethernet
IP
UDP
TCP
ARP
ICMP
DHCP (broken)
Telnet

PTBridge with Packet Tracer 7.0

Connection and packet flow from Packet Tracer 7.0 are working properly and have been validated with a fully functionnal ICMP test between Cisco Packet Tracer and a router located in the physical network.. However, practical work using telnet to configure a Packet Tracer switch reveals to be quite unstable with several connection and typo issues.

Received STP frames from Packet Tracer 7.0

EthernetIIHeader | IpHeader | IcmpMessage | VariableSizePdu | 100 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 128 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 255 | 1 | 0 | 192.168.1.210 | 192.168.1.254 | 0 | 0 | E8F1.XXXX.07DC | 0001.XXXX.7336 | 0 | 2048 | 

EthernetIIHeader | IpHeader | IcmpMessage | VariableSizePdu | 100 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 128 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 255 | 1 | 0 | 192.168.1.210 | 192.168.1.254 | 0 | 0 | E8F1.XXXX.07DC | 0001.XXXX.7336 | 0 | 2048 | 

EthernetIIHeader | IpHeader | IcmpMessage | VariableSizePdu | 100 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 128 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 255 | 1 | 0 | 192.168.1.210 | 192.168.1.254 | 0 | 0 | E8F1.XXXX.07DC | 0001.XXXX.7336 | 0 | 2048 | 

EthernetIIHeader | IpHeader | IcmpMessage | VariableSizePdu | 100 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 128 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 255 | 1 | 0 | 192.168.1.210 | 192.168.1.254 | 0 | 0 | E8F1.XXXX.07DC | 0001.XXXX.7336 | 0 | 2048 |

Warning : PTBridge needs root privilege on linux to be able to configure the real network interface in promiscuous mode. Without root privilège, PTbridge is unable to decode the packets originating from the real network ethernet interface. The following java error is then returned for each received packet. As Windows 10 embeded Ubuntu doesn't feature any ethernet interface (error returned when calling ifconfig), and despite beeing succesfully loaded, PTBrige returns the sans error on Windows 10. Let's hope that the upcoming "Creators update" will make it possible.

java.lang.IllegalStateException: Unreachable section!
        at at.stefl.packetsocket.io.ExtendedDataInputStream.readShort(ExtendedDataInputStream.java:99)
        at at.stefl.packetsocket.pdu.formatter.Ethernet2FrameFormatter.parse(Ethernet2FrameFormatter.java:48)
        at at.stefl.packetsocket.pdu.formatter.Ethernet2FrameFormatter.parse(Ethernet2FrameFormatter.java:1)
        at at.stefl.packetsocket.pdu.formatter.GenericPDUFormatter.parse(GenericPDUFormatter.java:23)
        at at.stefl.ptbridge.traverser.EthernetTraverser$EthernetReceiver.run(EthernetTraverser.java:25)

PTBridge installation and usage

Packet Tracer needs then to be setup for multiuser connection in server mode. Try the connection with a second packet tracer instance to validate your Packet Tracer configuration before testing PTBridge

Connect PTBridge to Packer Tracer with the following syntax :

ptbridge [interface pt_ip:pt_port password]

Download PTBridge from GitHUB

Javascript API - Connect IoT devices to the real network

Coming soon