Quickstart

Quickstart: your first lab, then break it

From a fresh install to three real Linux machines on one network. Then you cut one machine's link and watch the others notice. Everything runs on your workstation; no cloud account is involved.

1. 01

   Install

   Run the installer in a terminal and pick 1) Desktop app from its menu:

   $ curl -fsSL https://get.iapetus.dev | bash Copy

   It checks for the host packages the app needs (QEMU, the cloud-init image tools, dnsmasq, iptables and virtiofsd), offers to install any that are missing with apt, then installs the Iapetus .deb. To skip the menu, name the component: curl -fsSL https://get.iapetus.dev | bash -s -- --desktop.

2. 02

   Get your license

   Create your account and verify your email address. Verifying issues your free Local license, since Iapetus is free to use on your own machine, and emails you the key. It is also on your dashboard whenever you need it again.

3. 03

   Launch and activate

   Start Iapetus from your applications menu. Open Settings at the bottom of the sidebar, then License. Paste the key into the field and click Activate License. The page switches to License Active. The key is verified offline, on your machine.

4. 04

   Set up the host

   Open Settings → Application and click Set up host networking. One admin prompt authorizes a single audited helper for the network bridge, TAP devices, firewall rules and per-machine throttling. There is no standing root access; everything else runs as you.

   Then download the guest image once. Open Settings → Linux Images: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS shows Not downloaded. Copy its command, run it in a terminal, and click Refresh.

   If anything else is missing, Settings → Healthcheck lists each dependency with the command that installs it.

5. 05

   Create three machines

   Go to Machines and click Create machine. In Name, type a comma-separated list:

   node-1, node-2, node-3

   Keep the defaults: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, the lab provisioning profile (Docker and dev tools) and the default network. The IP address is pre-filled with the next free one, and the other two machines get theirs automatically. Click Create 3 machines, then Start all.

   Each machine is a real VM with its own kernel and its own NIC on the network. Its first boot takes a few minutes while cloud-init provisions it. A machine is ready when the Provisioning panel on its Overview tab goes from Pending to Applied.

6. 06

   Break it

   Open node-1 and click its terminal button (Open SSH terminal). Ping node-2, using the IP address the Machines list shows for it, and leave the ping running:

   ping <node-2's IP address>

   Now open node-2, go to its Network tab and click Cut on its network card. The replies stop. node-2 is still running, but its link is gone. The fault is applied on the host, outside the guest, so nothing inside node-2 can undo it.

   For a slow or lossy link instead of a dead one, click Throttle and set Delay (ms), Jitter (ms), Loss (%) or a Rate (kbps) cap. The ping times show it at once.

7. 07

   Watch it, then put it back

   Open the Map in the sidebar. It draws your machines on their network, shows node-2's cut link and counts the faults that are active right now. Back on node-2's Network tab, click Restore; the pings come back. A fault stays until you clear it, even across a restart of the machine.

   That is the loop: real machines, a real fault, and the effect you can see. Swap the ping for your own services, such as a database and its replica or a broker set, and see whether they survive losing a node.