Getting Started with Infix

This is a guide for those who want to learn more about Infix using a hands-on approach. You need a Linux 🐧 system with Qemu installed, we recommend Debian based systems, like Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

For a pain-free experience we recommend enabling CPU virtualization in your BIOS/UEFI, which for many computers is disabled by default.

From this point we assume you have your x86_64/AMD64 based Linux system up and running. Time to start your favorite terminal application! 😃

Installing Qemu

$ sudo apt install qemu-system-x86 virt-manager
...

Download Infix

Go to https://github.com/kernelkit/infix/releases/latest and scroll down to Assets. Download the tarball named infix-x86_64-VER.tar.gz, where VER is the YY.MM.PATCH release number, e.g. 26.02.1.

It extracts to a subdirectory with the same name:

$ tar xf infix-x86_64-26.02.1.tar.gz
$ cd infix-x86_64-26.02.1/

Running Infix

Depending on how you have set up your Linux installation, the following may require being run with superuser privileges, i.e., you may need to prepend the command with sudo.

$ ./qemu/run.sh

You should now see Infix booting. When the login prompt appears, the default credentials are admin / admin.

More Ethernet Ports

For more Ethernet ports in your emulated system you need to change the Qemu configuration used for Infix. This can be done using a menuconfig interface, which requires the following extra package:

$ sudo apt install kconfig-frontends

We can now enter the configuration:

$ ./qemu/run.sh -c

Go down to Networking, select TAP, now you can change the Number of TAPs, e.g. to 10. Exit and save the configuration, then start Qemu again:

$ ./qemu/run.sh

Make sure to do a factory reset from the CLI, otherwise you will be stuck with that single interface from before.