What is iolbox?

iolbox is a Windows application for running Cisco IOL and VPCS network labs, the kind of virtual routers and switches network engineers use to practice configurations without physical hardware. It lets someone draw a network diagram, open a console into each virtual device, and capture traffic on any link straight into Wireshark, a popular network analysis tool. The whole thing runs as a single small program with no login screen, no database, and no separate web server to manage. The README is upfront that iolbox does not include any Cisco software itself. Users must supply their own IOL or IOU disk images and hold the proper license for them, the tool is only the lab environment around those images. Cisco's IOL images are Linux programs, so they cannot run directly on Windows. iolbox solves this by running them inside a small Linux execution layer hosted by whichever virtualization tool the user already has: VMware Workstation by default, or alternatively WSL2, a remote Linux machine reached over SSH, or QEMU software emulation as a fallback with no extra setup. The virtual network links between devices are simple relays, which is also how Wireshark taps into them without needing bridges or administrator rights. Beyond the core lab canvas, iolbox lets a user hot swap which software image a device uses from a picker, open a console for each node either inside the app or in an external terminal, save and restore a device's startup configuration, and store an entire lab as one shareable JSON file. According to the README, the project has reached version 0.4.0 and has been validated end to end against real Cisco IOL hardware images across every supported virtualization option, with installer packages built and tested for six different setups including plain Windows, VMware, WSL2, Proxmox, and a generic Linux server. iolbox is an independent project and states it is not affiliated with or endorsed by Cisco Systems.