packet-tracer-mcp

An MCP server that generates Cisco Packet Tracer 9.0.0 .pkt files from natural-language topology descriptions. Ask Claude to "create a network with a router, switch, and two PCs" and get a working .pkt file you can open directly in Packet Tracer.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• Cisco Packet Tracer 9.0.0
• macOS ARM64 (the pka2xml binary is pre-compiled for ARM64; other platforms must compile it from source — see pka2xml/)

Installation

git clone https://github.com/eordonez/packet-tracer-mcp
cd packet-tracer-mcp
pip install mcp[cli]

Register with Claude Code (replace the path with the absolute path on your machine):

claude mcp add packet-tracer -- python3 /absolute/path/to/packet-tracer-mcp/server.py

Tools

Tool	Description
generate_topology	Generate a .pkt file from a list of devices and links
decode_topology	Decode a .pkt file and return a human-readable topology summary
read_pkt_xml	Decode a .pkt file and return the raw XML

Usage Example

Ask Claude:

Create a network topology with a router (192.168.1.1/24), a switch, and two PCs (192.168.1.10 and 192.168.1.11). Save it to ~/Desktop/lab1.pkt.

Claude will call generate_topology with the appropriate devices and links and save the file.

Port Naming Conventions

Device Type	Port Name
PC / Server / Printer	FastEthernet0
Laptop	FastEthernet0
Router	FastEthernet0/0, FastEthernet1/0, FastEthernet2/0, …
Switch	FastEthernet0/1, FastEthernet1/1, FastEthernet2/1, …
Access Point (wired uplink)	Port 0

Wireless Note

Laptops connect to an access point wirelessly via SSID — do not add a cable link between a laptop and an AP. The association is implicit.

Credits

• pka2xml by Mirco De Zorzi — BSD-2-Clause
• ptexplorer by Alexandre Cheron — MIT