Simulating a distributed office network connected over Internet

[a-v-popov]

I want to simulate a distributed enterprise office network connected over routed infrastructure.
The requirements for the routed infra is very basic, a few tiny containers running OSPF and maybe BGP, however branch offices should be able to get their addresses via DHCP.
Essentially I need ether a router with DHCP server, or a dnsmasq attached to every network a branch office is connected to.
The former doesn't seem to exist as a small container, and would probably require a hand-crafted one.
The latter would probably garble any graph created by netlab (unless I missed the option to exclude node from a graph).
Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[ipspace]

There's DHCP server on Cisco IOS and Arista EOS. Arista would probably be ideal as it's easy to get, and runs as a container. Overview in https://netlab.tools/module/dhcp/, tested details in https://tests.netlab.tools/_html/coverage.dhcp

or a dnsmasq attached to every network a branch office is connected to.

You could also configure DHCP forwarding on branch office routers

The latter would probably garble any graph created by netlab (unless I missed the option to exclude node from a graph).

That's a nice one. Let me work on that...

[a-v-popov]

Arista would probably be ideal ...

I was hoping to get away with FRR or BIRD, my expectation is that they are leaner.

You could also configure DHCP forwarding on branch office routers

Then I would need to configure my own DHCP server with all the subnets manually, right?, I was hoping to offload this entertaining work to netlab. Although some sort of centralized DNS/DHCP might be useful in some sense, but I am not sure I want to spend time on it.

That's a nice one. Let me work on that...

If you see this possible at some point in the future I guess I will try to experiment in this direction. Thank you.

[ipspace]

I was hoping to get away with FRR or BIRD, my expectation is that they are leaner.

FRR might have DHCP forwarder built in (I never looked); you have to build the BIRD container anyway, so you could easily add DHCP forwarder to the Dockerfile.

Then I would need to configure my own DHCP server with all the subnets manually, right?

Of course not ;))

I was hoping to offload this entertaining work to netlab.

It all happens automagically when you deploy a dnsmasq daemon. I "just" have to document it 🤷‍♂️

Here are sample topologies: https://github.com/ipspace/netlab/tree/dev/tests/integration/dhcp and https://github.com/ipspace/netlab-examples/tree/master/DHCP

Although some sort of centralized DNS/DHCP might be useful in some sense, but I am not sure I want to spend time on it.

I haven't implemented DNS server yet, but it's been on my wish list for quite a while. Maybe next week ;))

That's a nice one. Let me work on that...

If you see this possible at some point in the future I guess I will try to experiment in this direction. Thank you.

Just monitor #2728