Hey everyone,

As you know, Pnetlab 6 previously needed a backported version of PHP 7.2 to run on Ubuntu 20.04, but that version is no longer available.

Thanks to @Mehrzadmo, we now have a community-patched version that works with PHP 7.4, which is natively supported on Ubuntu 20.04. You can install it using:

curl -sSL https://download.netlabplus.com/pnetlab/install_pnetlab_v6.sh | bash

This will later be mirrored on LabHub as well.

⚠️ Note that these are community updates, not official from the Pnetlab Team, we are not associated with them

As I’m helping facilitate this patched version, I feel it’s important to be transparent about the risks. Please understand that everything on LabHub comes with no guarantees - including image files, which are not vetted.

While it’s generally fine to run Pnetlab on your LAN, you need to be especially cautious if:
- You're running it on a cloud platform (e.g., GCP)
- You're exposing it to the public internet
- You're sharing access with students or colleagues

Ubuntu 20.04 has reached end-of-life, and several components used by Pnetlab are no longer actively maintained. This increases the risk of unpatched vulnerabilities.

If you still choose to use this version:
- Isolate it from the public internet
- Restrict access to trusted users only

My advice remains the same: use actively maintained software, especially in production or enterprise environments.

You can now use:

curl -sSL https://drive.labhub.eu.org/0:/upgrades_pnetlab/focal/install_pnetlab_v6.sh | bash

Or:

curl -sSL
"https://labhub.eu.org/api/raw/?path=/upgrades_pnetlab/focal/install_pnetlab_v6.sh" | bash

To install Pnetlab 6 patched to support PHP 7.4

Hello guys,

It was recently found that a few dependencies were missing from the previous Pnetlab release.
Please make sure to install them manually if you haven't already:

sudo apt install libsdl2-dev libsdl2-2.0-0 -y;

I'll update the script to include these as part of the installation process.

Have a nice weekend!

Hello guys,

​I have some bad news: the main mirror, labhub.eu.org, will be retired. This is because Microsoft won't renew the Developer E5 subscription I'm currently using.

​The secondary mirror, drive.labhub.eu.org, will stay active, but you might face the quota issues we've seen before.

​If you have a developer E5 account and would like to use it to support the project, please get in touch.

In the meantime, I'll look for different solutions but can't promise anything.

We've come a long way
(I only have stats for the secondary mirror so it's probably a lot more in reality)

Thanks for voting in the poll! Here’s a rough draft of the plan I have in mind:

This would be my first time running a fundraiser, so if you have any suggestions I'm open to more ideas.

The Goal: Raise $100 USD each year to cover our OneDrive subscription costs.

How: I plan to set up a fundraiser on a platform like Buy Me a Coffee.
Contributions: Every little bit helps! Any contribution amount, big or small, adds up to help us reach the goal.

Attribution (Optional): We would offer all donors the option to be credited on the LabHub website.
This is completely optional. You would remain anonymous by default.
We could also have a "Sponsor" section for any organizations that prefer to have their name displayed.

This is just the initial draft idea. I'd love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or suggestions in the comments :)

Update:
Use legacy.labhub.eu.org or alist.labhub.eu.org
I'll fix the drive and main mirrors soon

Just added legacy.labhub.eu.org to the list of mirrors in ishare2. You should be able to choose it by issuing the command:

ishare2 config

> Choose legacy when asked to choose a mirror (option 3)
Example: https://t.me/labhub_chat/5121

All mirrors are back online.
Please reinstall ishare2 if needed and choose the autorotate option.
Will fix ishare2 soon

You might start hitting quota limits. Please be patient while I launch a new mirror

Also, shout-out to our friend Ram for providing storage for a whole year! He's a hero to the community!
It has come to an end (due to external issues out of our control) but we're grateful for his service last year!

I'm getting some more storage. Hopefully will be able to come up with 3 independent mirrors

New mirror:
https://drive.labhub.eu.org/1:/
https://labhub.eu.org/1:/

You will literally see no difference between them, they're the same files but quota will be less exhausted on the new mirror.
I'll get two more soon, meaning we'll soon have:
https://drive.labhub.eu.org/2:/ & https://drive.labhub.eu.org/3:/
(Coming soon)

With 4 mirrors we'll hopefully have enough bandwidth to get around quota limits. We'll see. ishare2 will need to be reworked to work with this new system.

Currently we have no checks for http status and you get whatever HTML is returned on an error status code.

We'll drop support for the ishare2 bash version that is really broken at this point and will become more complex to manage than it already is. I might make a final release just to keep a good legacy version around.

Also, I didn't follow up on that because I might've hallucinated the $100 Onedrive plan. I never saw it again lol

However, I've been able to get $50 shared drives that we'll use to make the mirrors. So far I've bought two packages for the mirrors, so I basically got a similar deal with more storage for mirrors. (14 TB)

Now the only problem is quota limits. I used to get around them with service accounts, that used to be enough but nowadays that's not working. I'll do more research to solve it but if you have any information on how to get around Google Drive quota limits, please let me know.

Hi all,

Apparently there is an ongoing issue with PNETLab's online mode. Even though THIS IS NOT an emulator specific tool or channel, I know that a lot of users are on PNETLab.

Running this command might fix your issue:

mode reset offline

Just put it on bash through ssh

⚠️ Proceed with caution

The following might work too but I haven't tested it.
This will enable offline mode and disable captcha:

mysql -uroot -ppnetlab -D pnetlab_db -e 'UPDATE control SET control_value = "offline" WHERE control_name = "ctrl_default_mode"; UPDATE control SET control_value = "1" WHERE control_name = "ctrl_offline_mode"; UPDATE control SET control_value = "0" WHERE control_name = "ctrl_online_mode"; UPDATE control SET control_value = "0" WHERE control_name = "ctrl_captcha";'

If I remember correctly the default username is "pnet" and the password is "admin" for offline mode or the other way around Idk read the docs at pnetlab.com.

If you get a "user doesn't exist" error then try the next one.

This keeps online mode but disables captcha (probably won't work lol but still here it is):

mysql -uroot -ppnetlab -D pnetlab_db -e 'UPDATE control SET control_value = "online" WHERE control_name = "ctrl_default_mode"; UPDATE control SET control_value = "0" WHERE control_name = "ctrl_offline_mode"; UPDATE control SET control_value = "1" WHERE control_name = "ctrl_online_mode"; UPDATE control SET control_value = "0" WHERE control_name = "ctrl_captcha";'

Let me know if it works or if you have any issues. This assumes you're using the default database password.