A Reusable 5-Node CCNA Topology in EVE-NG

One small topology covering VLANs, trunks, router-on-a-stick, static routing, NAT and management, the same pattern CyberDen runs for real.

2025-11-20#CyberDen

work: Nov 2025 · short · Networking, CCNA, EVE-NG

Topology

            10.0.12.0/30
   R1 (edge) ───────────── R2 (WAN/ISP)
    │ Gi0/0                  │ Gi0/0
   SW1 ════ trunk ════════ SW2
    │ access VLAN 10
   H1

R1, R2: Cisco IOSv · SW1, SW2: IOSv-L2 · H1: a small Linux host
VLAN 10 USERS, VLAN 20 SERVERS, VLAN 99 MGMT (all lab-internal addressing)
R1 does router-on-a-stick: Gi0/0.10, .20, .99

EVE-NG VM hardware — The EVE-NG VM on Proxmox: 16 GB, six cores, host CPU type so the lab nodes can nest.

What it lets me practice

Access vs trunk ports, native VLAN, allowed-VLAN lists
Router-on-a-stick sub-interfaces and encapsulation dot1Q
Static and default routes across the /30
NAT/PAT at the edge
SSH-only management on the MGMT VLAN
Breaking it on purpose: wrong native VLAN, a VLAN pruned from the trunk, a missing route

Why it mattered beyond the exam

It's the same pattern CyberDen runs for real: VyOS as router-on-a-stick over one trunk. Practicing the failure modes here (native VLAN mismatch, a VLAN missing from a trunk) is exactly what paid off in W02 and W06.

Sources: CCNA EVE-NG topology setup (19 Nov 2025), Network engineering lab setup (17 Nov 2025)