Release Notes

Release 26.08 (2026-08-10)

The highlights of release 26.08 include:

• Support for ArcOS by @roc-ops, VPP (FD.io) by @jbemmel, and SONiC containers (also by @roc-ops)

• The routing module supports IPv4/IPv6 access control lists (by @DanPartelly)

• The new services module configures DNS clients and servers

• GRE tunnels on Arista EOS and GRE/WireGuard tunnels on Mikrotik RouterOS7 and OpenBSD (by @snuffy22)

• clab provider supports the podman container runtime (details)

We couldn’t avoid a few changes with a non-zero chance of breaking your existing setup:

• netlab always configures an IPv6 containerlab management subnet to support vrnetlab containers using Transparent Management feature.

• Linux nodes (and devices based on them, like BIRD) do not accept IPv6 default route from the management network (most other devices use a management VRF)

• We switched to sudo-less containerlab operation.

More details, new device features, and breaking changes

Release 26.07 (2026-07-12)

The highlights of release 26.07 include:

• The multiserver plugin distributes containerlab devices across multiple servers.

• The GRE tunnel plugin supports GRE tunnels on Cisco IOS, FRR, VyOS, and Junos (vSRX and vJunos-router).

• The WireGuard tunnel plugin supports WireGuard tunnels on FRR.

• The bgp.session plugin and the OSPF module support graceful restart on Arista EOS, BIRD, FortiOS, and FRR

• The bgp.policy plugin supports the bgp.role attribute on FRR and BIRD.

We also had to make a few breaking changes:

• The VirtualBox provider has been removed.

• BIRD v3 is now the default BIRD version.

• Mikrotik RouterOS 7 BGP templates use the new(er) BGP configuration syntax.

More details and breaking changes

Release 26.06 (2026-06-07)

• Nokia SR Linux supports SR-MPLS over IPv6 and MPLS/VPN services.

• FortiOS supports OSPFv3.

• netlab install scripts work on Ubuntu 26.04

• You can build custom Linux Vagrant boxes and set the full box name with the netlab libvirt package command.

More details and breaking changes

Release 26.05 (2026-05-16)

• Support for global BGP routes with SRv6 next hops on FRR and IOS XR

• Support for Juniper cSRX container

• Streamline and speed up the FortiOS initial device configuration

• Junos OSPF/IS-IS route redistribution, VRF IS-IS instances, and OSPF interface parameters

• We changed the minimum supported Python version to 3.10. New netlab versions will thus no longer run on Ubuntu 20.04.

• You can define scripts (for example, device license management) that are executed at various points in the netlab up and netlab down processes.

More details and breaking changes

Release 26.04 (2026-04-12)

• New bgp.advertise node/VRF attribute — advertise prefixes from IP routing tables into BGP on most platforms.

• The bgp.originate node attribute can be used to originate IPv4 and IPv6 prefixes in global and VRF BGP instances.

• Extreme Networks EXOS initial platform support

• Static routes on Nexus OS, Nokia SR OS, SR Linux, OpenBSD

• EVPN/VXLAN-over-IPv6 on FRRouting

More details

Release 26.03 (2026-03-10)

• New Cisco IOS XR features: SR-MPLS, MPLS/VPN, MPLS 6PE, EVPN over MPLS, VRRP, full BGP routing policy support

• Juniper cRPD support

• EVPN/VXLAN on Juniper vPTX and vJunos-router

• OpenBSD BGP support

• SR-MPLS support for OSPFv2 on EOS, FRR, IOS XE, IOS XR

More details and breaking changes

Release 26.02 (2026-02-11)

• Support for Kubernetes (KinD) clusters based on work by @wnagele

• Layer-2 EVPN/VXLAN support on Cat8000v, IOL, IOLL2

• Containers can be configured with Linux scripts or containerlab startup-config parameter instead of with an Ansible playbook.

• netlab graph command can create graphs from a subset of nodes or links

More details and a tiny breaking change

Release 26.01.01 (2026-01-14)

Release 26.01.01 is a bug-fix release fixing the netlab status crash.

Release 26.01 (2026-01-12)

Release 26.01 introduces a major rewrite of the device configuration file generation process, making it fully independent of Ansible. Ansible is used solely for configuration deployment.

Other new features include:

• EVPN for VXLAN-over-IPv6

• The ‘skip_config’ node attribute can be used to deploy partially-provisioned labs

• Lightweight netlab API HTTP server

More details and breaking changes

Release 25.12.03 (2025-12-13)

Release 25.12.03 changes the ansible_host inventory parameter from hostname to IPv4 address for containers with SSH servers to address a change in ansible-pylibssh version 1.3.0 that prevented underscores in SSH hostnames.

Bug fixes in release 25.12.03

Release 25.12.01/02 (2025-12-05)

Release 25.12.01 fixes a stupid bug that crashed netlab install. Release 25.12.02 fixes the target containerlab release version (it wasn’t one of my best days).

Release 25.12 (2025-12-05)

• Large BGP community lists, implemented on Arista EOS, FRR, and Junos. You can use standard- or large community lists in routing policies

• Support Cisco ASAv in vrnetlab containers

• Reread validation tests from the lab topology file (if it was modified since the lab was started) every time you run the netlab validate command

• The shutdown link/interface attribute can be used to start labs with interfaces turned off

• The bgp.rr_mesh parameter controls IBGP sessions between BGP route reflectors

More details and breaking changes

Release 25.11.01 (2025-11-18)

Release 25.11.01 fixes two bugs that could prevent the use of SR-OS/SR-SIM or some external tools.

Release 25.11 (2025-11-12)

• SRv6 support on Cisco IOS/XE

• RIPv2/RIPng support on OpenBSD thanks to Remi Locherer

• The netlab graph command can generate PNG/SVG/JPEG/PDF graphs if you have D2 or Graphviz installed

• You can generate reports and graphs, or inspect transformed topology data without starting a lab

• You can use device-based groups (for example, eos or frr groups) to set node attributes.

More details and breaking changes

Release 25.10 (2025-10-08)

• You can use wildcards or regular expressions to specify group- or as_list ASN/RR members.

• New device: container version of Cisco 8000v emulator (running IOS XR)

• Graphing improvements

• Support for vJunosEVO release 24/25

• OSPFv2/v3 on OpenBSD

• OSPFv2/v3 interface parameters on IOS XR

More details…

Release 25.09-post1 (2025-09-14)

Release 25.09-post1 fixes the netlab templating crash caused by breaking changes in Ansible core release 12.9.

Release 25.09 (2025-09-07)

• Link impairment (implemented with Linux netem queuing discipline) can be defined in lab topology or configured/controlled with the netlab tc command

• Configurable IPv6 Router Advertisement parameters

• The files plugin allows you to store the content of short files (including custom configuration templates) directly in the lab topology

• New device: Nokia SR-SIM

• Graphing, reporting, and performance/scalability improvements

More details…

Release 25.07 (2025-07-14)

• The ospf.areas plugin supports OSPFv2 and OSPFv3 stub areas, NSSA areas, and area ranges.

• The BGP routing policies plugin supports aggregate BGP routes

• The BGP configuration module supports BGP confederations

• The evpn.multihoming plugin implements EVPN Ethernet Segment Identifiers and EVPN-based MLAG/multihoming

• Baseline OpenBSD support

More details…

Release 25.06 (2025-06-11)

• Discard static routes

• Redistribution of static routes into OSPF, IS-IS, RIPv2, RIPng, and BGP

• Numerous new Nokia SR-OS features and bug fixes.

• LAG on Junos

More details…

For older releases, check the release notes archive.

Individual release notes

• Changes in Release 26.08
• Changes in Release 26.07
• Changes in Release 26.06
• Changes in Release 26.05
• Changes in Release 26.04
• Changes in Release 26.03
• Changes in Release 26.02
• Changes in Release 26.01
• Changes in Release 25.12
• Changes in Release 25.11
• Changes in Release 25.10
• Changes in Release 25.09
• Changes in Release 25.07
• Changes in Release 25.06
• Release Notes Archive