What's Changed

• Live packet capture with internal tail by @grossmj in #3835

Full Changelog: v3.1.0a4...v3.1.0a5

Server changes

https://github.com/GNS3/gns3-server/releases/tag/v3.1.0a5

GUI

• No changes

Server

• Sync appliances
• fix(import): unvalidated symlink creation in import_project
• fix(qemu): fix addition of QEMU RNG device causes interface names to change
• fix(qemu): remove trailing space from RNG object argument
• fix: do not start nodes when deleting a project
• fix: correct always-true state check in DockerVM.stop()

GUI

• feat(capture): implement live packet capture with internal tail
• Add support for Ptyxis terminal. Fixes #3834

Server

• Sync appliances
• Only set IOU images to be executable when importing images
• fix(import): project import does not move images symlinks into place
• Search for system UEFI that is compatible with Python < 3.12
• Add OVMF firmware directory configuration
• Automatically add a Random Number Generator (RNG) device when using uefi option is enabled
• fix(docker): handle container name conflict automatically
• fix: gns3-server crashes on startup if "Open this project in the background" is active but there is a problem with that project
• Handle HTTPNotFound exception when retrieving compute status
• Fix: Check compute connectivity before open() during project deletion
• API endpoints to manage base configuration files for templates

GUI

• No changes

Server

• Bundle web-ui v3.1.0a4
• Add jwt_refresh_token_expire_minutes to sample configuration
• Remove deleted web-ui files from git
• .dockerignore ignore .dockerignore
• typo made me reconsider and move out to env
• defaulted DOCKERHUB_ORG repository variable
• Remove API docs from 2.2 after merging
• Update GitHub Actions workflows
• Fix web-wireshark docker build broken by xpra 6.5 release
• Update CI to install [ai-features,dev] instead of [ai-copilot,dev]
• Make AI features (AI Copilot + MCP) optional via [ai-features] extra
• Add refresh token mechanism documentation under docs/features/
• Add /refresh to allowed public endpoints list in route auth test
• Add stateless JWT refresh token mechanism
• Add project/node/link handler tests: 39 total, covering list/get/create/delete/start/stop/suspend/reload/console/update/fields
• Add MCP tool parameter consistency tests
• Fix appliance_install: add version parameter
• Add coordinate system note to docs
• Document canvas coordinate system in node_create x/y params
• Update docstring: batch concurrency from 10 to 100
• Remove unused import time
• Add list type check before nodes[0] access in _normalize_link_nodes
• Add fields type validation in create handlers
• Use pop() instead of pop(0) for O(1) port removal
• Fix review issues: key_prefix length, count validation, WAL log, timeout comment, pointless temp var
• Fix: pass name from TemplateUsage to add_node_from_template
• Remove unused imports (logging, log, select)
• Add warning for unconsumed pre-allocated UDP ports after link creation
• Remove FIXME comment about middleware in server.py
• Rename device_command_run_handler → device_show_run_handler to match tool name
• Rename device_command_run → device_show_run for clarity
• Fix device_command_run KeyError('commands'): tool desc said show_commands but backend expects commands
• Fix template_list return type annotation to match _run_handler_sync envelope
• Add performance optimization documentation
• Update MCP service docs: API key format, auth flow, tool parameters, concurrency
• Increase HTTP connection pool to 500/1000
• Increase BATCH_MAX_WORKERS and Pool concurrency from 20 to 100
• Remove final timing artifact in projects.py
• Remove remaining dead timing variables and imports
• Remove database warmup (proven ineffective - real bottleneck was bcrypt blocking event loop)
• Clean up all timing/debug logs
• Add memory: import validation best practice
• Fix: add missing UUID imports
• Generate fresh JWT on API key auth instead of returning raw key
• Optimize API key auth: O(1) lookup via UUID-embedded key format
• Fix: offload bcrypt.checkpw to thread pool to prevent blocking event loop
• Add timing to API key auth path and log api_keys count
• Replace SELECT 1 warmup with full database file read to warm OS page cache
• Add timing logs to auth dependency chain to identify 6s pre-handler delay
• Add granular timing to get_template: separate execute vs fetch time
• Warm up database connection pool on startup to avoid 8s cold-start penalty on first API request
• Fix: register WAL PRAGMA on sync_engine instead of Engine class for async compat
• Add timing logs to get_template to identify DB query bottleneck
• Add timing middleware to log slow requests (>1s) with [CTRL-TIMING] prefix
• Fix: _time → time in compute.py timing log
• Add [CTRL-TIMING] logs to controller create_node flow
• Fix: pass template_id to batch mode handler so top-level template_id works as default
• Add detailed timing logs to MCP node creation and HTTP client
• Add fields filter to template_list tool with description for AI
• Fix: add missing _filter_link_response function
• Pass name parameter through to controller API when creating node from template
• Add validation to compact link format with clear error messages
• Add compact array format for link node entries to reduce token usage
• Add fields filter to link_create tool
• Reduce md5sum cache write failure log level from error to warning
• Add fields filter to node_create tool description for AI
• Optimize MCP create_node: support inherited template_id and default fields filter
• Increase MCP HTTP client timeout from 10s to 30s
• Enable SQLite WAL mode to fix 'database is locked' errors under concurrent API requests
• Cache IOU image default values per image path to avoid redundant subprocess calls
• Increase node and link creation concurrency from 5 to 20
• Fix: revert IOU lock optimization, serialize IOU node creation for correct application_id assignment
• Performance: accelerate project opening with parallel link creation and batch UDP port allocation
• feat: Add batch link_ids to link_delete/link_reset, fields filter to link_list
• feat: Add fields filter to link_list
• feat: Add batch node_ids to node_delete
• fix: Convert http to ws scheme in node_console WebSocket URL
• feat: Add batch link_ids to link_capture_download
• feat: Add batch link_ids to link_capture_start/stop
• fix: Store username in gns3_ctx during auth, use for short-lived download JWTs
• fix: Generate independent short-lived JWT for pcap download
• revert: Remove _configs_map changes in tools_v2 (handled by template renderer now)
• fix: Merge commands for duplicate device_names in _configs_map
• fix: Actually pass template param to device_config/command handlers
• fix: Correct Jinja2 template commands_field per tool type
• feat: Jinja2 template support in device_command_run
• feat: Jinja2 template support in device_config_send
• feat: Add batch node_ids support to node_start/stop/reload/suspend
• feat: Add fields filter to appliance_list
• feat: Add fields filter to node_list
• feat: node_get fields filter — match controller Node schema fields
• fix: Set auto_close=False on project_create so projects stay open when clients disconnect
• feat: Add batch mode to node_create and link_create (parallel, max 10 workers)
• fix: Pass API key directly instead of generating short-lived JWT
• feat: API key lifecycle — revoke/restore/delete
• fix: Rename revoke_api_key → delete_api_key
• fix: Hard-delete API keys instead of soft delete (revoked flag)
• feat: Support API keys in REST API authentication (reuse gns3_ prefix keys)
• fix: Lazily access db engine for API key validation
• fix: Add missing updated_at column to api_keys table
• fix: Export ApiKeyCreate from schemas package
• feat: Add API Key support for MCP authentication
• fix: Validate JWT token exp claim — was silently ignored after migration to joserfc
• fix: Add image field to template_create, document type-specific params in description
• fix: Remove .json() calls on 204 responses for prune/install images
• fix: Skip always-running nodes in start_all/stop_all
• fix: Add missing rotation parameter to drawing_update MCP tool
• fix: Map MCP device_command_run parameter to tool's expected field name
• fix: Update link_reset description to match actual behavior (delete + recreate)
• fix: Remove unsupported description param from project_create
• fix: Fix symbol_get/upload/delete handlers for correct API paths
• feat: Log registered MCP tools at startup
• fix: Type compute_id as uuid.UUID to reject non-UUID values at MCP input layer
• fix: Require UUID for compute_get/images, remove 'local' string default
• feat: Add device configuration MCP tools (config_send, command_run, vpcs_config_set)
• refactor: unify MCP tool naming to _ convention
• feat: Add symbol upload/delete, project load, and locked check MCP tools
• feat: Add image management MCP tools
• feat: Add symbol and appliance MCP tools
• feat: Add node bulk ops, project lock, and server info MCP tools
• feat: Add snapshot and drawing MCP tools
• refactor: unify MCP handlers to use http_call directly, relocate node file ops to Node class
• feat: Add node file operations as MCP tools (list, get, write, delete)
• Add comment about rootful Docker permissions at container start
• Fix _fix_permissions test: set process.returncode=0 and update assertion
• Fix list_node_files PermissionError on os.scandir
• Fix _fix_permissions error handling and list_node_files PermissionError
• Add async_iterable_to_stream utility to avoid aiohttp compatibility issues
• Add descriptive detail to 403 errors in compute file endpoints
• Fix silent file write failure in write_compute_project_file
• feat: Node file streaming, recursive listing, file type detection, and file delete
• Update README tool descriptions: .txt → .md
• Update README tool descriptions to mention Markdown format
• Add MCP project tools: update, duplicate, and README operations

GUI

• No changes (the web-ui is the most advanced interface)

Server

• Bundle web-ui v3.1.0a3
• fix: update MCP link tools descriptions with detailed filter info
• fix: correct MCP nodes and links tool parameter handling for nested kwargs
• fix: correct MCP template tool parameter handling for nested kwargs
• feat: add client information logging to MCP connection rejection
• refactor: replace MCP ready state polling with asyncio.Event
• fix: revert duplicate image check to fix failing tests
• fix (templates): Add ordering to handle the duplicate cases gracefully
• fix(templates): Database error detected when saving a template with a disk image change
• fix: return 503 error on MCP server ready timeout
• fix: add MCP server ready check to prevent initialization errors
• fix: resolve MCP server URL host via default route IP when bound to 0.0.0.0
• fix: correct MCP transport security config to actually allow all hosts by default
• feat: add configurable MCP transport security settings via gns3_server.conf
• fix: add load_feature_skills() to properly load network planning features
• refactor: convert all MCP tool parameter descriptions to Annotated+Field
• fix: remove platformdirs upper bound to resolve fastmcp-slim dependency conflict
• fix: add missing fastmcp dependency to resolve CI test failures
• refactor: move all imports to top of init.py
• test: add /v3/mcp/ to allowed public endpoints
• fix: remove console_host/port from get_node_console_info
• feat: add get_node_console_info tool
• feat: add 3 Compute MCP tools - Add list_computes, get_compute, get_compute_images - Total MCP tools: 29
• feat: add 5 Template MCP tools
• feat: add Node and Link MCP tools, update copyright - Add 9 node tools and 5 link tools - Update copyright year to 2026, add author
• feat: complete MCP SSE transport with JWT auth
• feat: support Authorization header and query param for MCP token
• feat: implement standard MCP protocol with SSE transport
• feat: add MCP (Model Context Protocol) service with project tools
• Add project memory: Docker container stop delay analysis
• Fix Docker VM tests for container status detection on node creation
• Add running project check for fast duplication
• Move running project check before fast duplication
• Add running project check for fast duplication
• Fix Docker container status detection on node creation
• Fix web-ui update script to handle custom GitHub URL changes
• Fix unnecessary Docker container recreation when renaming a project
• Fix project rename and duplicate issues
• Fix double deletion issue in remove_resource_from_pool
• Complete fix: delete resource records when deleting resource pool
• Apply fix from PR #2315: delete resource from resource table when removing from pool
• Remove deprecated 'PermissionsStartOnly' setting for Systemd service. Ref #1830
• Optimize project loading by implementing parallel node creation
• Fix delay filter validation: ensure delay: [0, X] returns proper error message
• Fix packet filter validation tests: use correct ubridge filter type names
• Update tests to match show_interface_labels default change
• Set default value of show_interface_labels to True
• Optimize project variable updates to use parallel node processing
• Fix ghost Docker nodes causing 60-second VNC timeout on variable updates
• Fix Docker container variable compatibility with Pydantic models
• Fix delay latency minimum: ubridge rejects latency <= 0
• Improve packet filter validation: use tcpdump, handle multi-line BPF, safe project load
• Add packet filter parameter validation to prevent ubridge errors
• feat: add mermaid-to-SVG conversion script with environment setup
• perf: batch RBAC permission checking for GET /projects
• test: add benchmark script for GET /projects performance testing
• fix: prevent duplicate projects when user projects are in resource pools
• fix: check both regular ACEs and resource pool ACEs for proper access control
• test: update RBAC test to use test_user.username for user isolation
• feat: add alembic migration for LLMConfig privileges
• feat: add independent LLMConfig permissions for AI profile management
• feat: remove resource pools from 'all endpoints' list
• refactor: add efficient get_aces_for_path method for resource pool checks
• feat: prevent deletion of resource pools used by ACE configurations
• feat: fix permission check logic to properly handle ACE and user isolation
• feat: implement layered permission checks for proper user isolation and sharing
• feat: implement simple user isolation based on project ownership
• fix: clean BPF syntax error message and specify loopback interface
• feat: add BPF syntax validation using tshark
• feat: add show_filters_icon parameter to packet filter tool
• feat: add packet filter management tool for GNS3-Copilot fault injection
• fix: update test_json expected output to include show_filters_icon field
• fix: add getattr fallback to show_filters_icon property for backward compatibility
• feat: add show_filters_icon property to Link for controlling Web UI filter icon display
• fix: ensure show_filters_icon is always returned in API responses
• feat: add show_filters_icon property to Link for controlling Web UI filter icon display
• fix: remove explicit paramiko pin to resolve dependency conflict with netmiko
• fix: update netmiko to 4.7.0 and pin paramiko>=5.0.0 to fix CVE-2026-44405
• fix: close DockerHTTPClient session to prevent UnixConnector leak in Web Wireshark

GUI

• Remove psutil version check
• Fix remaining PyQt6 compatibility issues. Fixes #3822
• Add --title to remote-viewer console commands. Fixes #3783
• Fix deleting drawings. Ref #3810

Server

• Bundle web-ui v3.1.0a2
• fix: surface tshark stderr errors to LLM, not just log them
• fix: hint LLM about -c behavior when tshark returns empty with -c
• fix: update search_fields examples to use existing field names
• fix: reject multi-keyword search_fields, single keyword only
• fix: document action/query params in PacketAnalysisTool description
• feat: add search_fields action to PacketAnalysisTool for real-time field lookup
• feat: validate tshark -e field names before running analysis
• fix: document -c behavior caveat in PacketAnalysisTool description
• fix: demote loader-level load logs to DEBUG, info already reported by manager
• fix: promote skills/prompts load logs to INFO level
• fix: load packet analysis protocols during skills initialization
• feat: add PacketAnalysisSkillsTool
• fix: remove remaining quoted example from tool input docstring
• fix: use shlex.split for tshark_args parsing
• feat: add packet analysis workflow to tool description
• refactor: remove old PacketCaptureTool, replaced by PacketAnalysisTool
• feat: add protocol-oriented packet analysis tool
• docs: add roadmap docs for planned features
• feat: require superadmin for /reload/skills endpoint
• fix: remove background init timeout and allow skills reload retry
• deps: add PyYAML and GitPython to ai-requirements.txt
• feat: add fault injection system and external skills repository
• fix: Disable DeepSeek thinking mode to avoid reasoning_content errors
• fix: Skip offline compute nodes during project import
• fix: Import status module in project.py
• fix: Handle connection errors when stopping node console
• refactor: Remove MD5 calculation from node files listing
• fix: Export NodeFile schema to schemas module
• feat: Add detailed metadata to node files listing
• feat: Add API endpoint to list node files
• Fix snapshot restore does not work after export/import of project
• Warn to use 64-bit IOU images. Fixes #2716 32-bit IOU image support has been removed from the GNS3 VM.
• Fix: Improve Docker container deletion error logging
• Fix: Add exponential backoff to compute reconnection attempts
• Fix: Check compute connectivity before node creation in open()
• Fix: Check compute connectivity before open() during project deletion
• Fix: Add error logging when closing/deleting projects on computes
• Fix: Skip add_compute for existing computes when opening projects
• feat: add AI provider config files to .gitignore
• Fix: Use _computes instead of _project_created_on_compute for deletion check
• Fix: Check compute connection status before project deletion
• fix: extend remote compute image path conversion to all node types
• fix: send relative image path to remote compute nodes
• fix: handle directory access for static web-ui routes
• fix: add duplicate name validation when updating templates
• fix: avoid AttributeError when password is not provided in compute update
• fix: improve hostname validation error messages with allowed characters
• feat(compute): Fix Dynamips to listen on the internal port when ssh is used for auxiliary console
• feat(compute): Fix ambiguous log message related to the active console transport.
• feat(compute): Updated server host key to use the secure ssh-ed25519 instead of old ssh-rsa algorithm
• feat(compute): Fix missing SSH wrapping for auxiliary console
• feat(compute): Added AsyncioSSHServer dedicated tests
• feat(compute): add SSH console type support
• fix: include error details in LLM model config failure response
• Fix telnet console silent-proxy hang on non-ConnectionError exit (#2344)

GUI

• Remove psutil version check
• Fix remaining PyQt6 compatibility issues. Fixes #3822
• Add --title to remote-viewer console commands. Fixes #3783
• Fix deleting drawings. Ref #3810

Server

• Sync appliances
• Fix snapshot restore does not work after export/import of project
• Warn to use 64-bit IOU images. Fixes #2716 32-bit IOU image support has been removed from the GNS3 VM.
• Fix telnet console silent-proxy hang on non-ConnectionError exit (#2344)

GUI

• Fix bug when an image checksum matches with another image filename
• Refresh Ui & resources files
• Copy GUI configuration from previous minor version
• Change default disk names when creating Qemu disks
• Fix QMenu parents
• Fix UltraVNC preconfigured command
• Fix bug when dragging scene
• Implement Dark Style
• Properly close image after uploading. Fixes #3736

Server

• New completely revamped Web interface.
• Add GNS3 Copilot AI agent back-end
• Web-wireshark: packet capture and live traffic analysis in the browser
• Fix using SSL with remote computes. Fixes #3733
• Add --url and --branch parameters to update-bundled-web-ui.sh
• Fix bug when custom_adapters is None in port_factory.py
• Have optional body in start node API endpoint
• Fix snapshots after merging
• Potential fix for pull request finding 'CodeQL / Information exposure through an exception'
• Refactored the way snapshots are handled in the server
• fix(symbols): add authentication to symbol raw endpoint
• fix(symbols): add CORS headers to symbol file responses
• Allow to find new project in sub dirs
• Enhancement: Refresh projects list without restarting the GNS3 server
• Fix accessing username in authentication.py
• Improved exception handling and telnet client disconnect
• Use get method for registry_version to avoid KeyError
• Add support for appliance format version 8
• Convert database template fields from PickleType to JSON
• feat(statistics): distinguish open vs closed project nodes
• fix(statistics): handle closed projects where nodes/links are dicts
• feat(controller): extend /statistics API with project, node and link stats
• Use FastAPI Lifespan Events
• feat(link): add control_offset field to LinkStyle
• feat(symbols): add DELETE API for removing custom symbol files
• Enhancement: Re-write current Telnet server implementation using telnetlib3 library
• feat: improve error handling for API configuration errors
• Enhancement Added link type support on the server side
• Ignore HTTPException received when closing a project
• Prevent router to be duplicated when running and add tests
• Fixed issue #1605 regarding Cisco slots causing configs to break
• feat: add VNC WebSocket console support for Docker and QEMU nodes
• Return 405 error for unsupported actions for other node types
• feat(telnet_server): improve error handling and connection management
• fix(telnet): handle connection race condition during broadcast
• Change first() to one_or_none() for image query
• Fix for duplicating Qemu nodes
• Minor optimizations to logic
• Fixed an issue with the server causing errors when uploading large images + Preparation for a smarter check when uploading images
• Implemented a smarter node_type system
• docs: restructure copilot docs and update node tools
• fix(acl): correct endpoint paths for users, groups, and roles
• fix(iou): return 405 error for unsupported suspend operation
• feat(api): enhance max_tokens field with robust null handling
• feat(docs): add AI prompting guide for configuration templates
• Deactivate 'use default IOU values' by default and update RAM/NVRAM values
• Make sure the node shows as stopped when the wrap console cannot be stopped. Ref GNS3/gns3-registry#1010
• chore: update author name and copyright headers
• feat(docs): enhance AI chat API documentation with examples and details
• feat: add .claude directory to gitignore for API key security
• Revert "Fix QEMU serial console artifacts by filtering ANSI CPR responses in …"
• docs: add troubleshooting guide for datetime timezone issue
• Drop support for Python 3.9
• feat: add multi-user concurrency control design document
• docs: add troubleshooting guide for force kill residual processes
• Fixed the path traversal check
• Fix image handling
• Qemu VMs: only compute MD5 checksums for existing disks
• Copy config files and database from a previous version if it exists
• Add enable_http_auth in gns3_server.conf sample
• feat(compute): option to disable compute authentication
• tests(controller,port): short_name finishes successfully when port name is None
• fix(controller,port): handle None port name to prevent TypeError in short_name method
• fix(docker): handle container name conflict automatically
• feat(virtualbox): add fallback for VBoxManage executable detection
• feat: simplify port name assignment logic
• feat(ports): add null checks for port name in short name generation
• Remove unneeded rbac_repo in get_templates
• Use lists for tags instead of dicts
• Fix for resizing Qemu VM disks
• feat(templates): safely access settings dict keys
• feat(api): fix ETag handling and JSON serialization in template endpoint
• feat(api): add tag filtering to nodes and templates endpoints
• Update project schema and fix tests
• Add 'created_by' field to track project creator
• Fix updating packet filters
• Add vendor, model and netmiko_device_type fields to templates
• fix: handle RuntimeError in notification_manager emit()
• fix: busybox static link detection on Alpine/musl
• Fix bug when updating compute password to be empty
• Cancel tasks if controller cannot be started
• Enable parallel compression with zstandard. Fixes #2324
• Add Dynamips to Dockerfile dependencies
• Take populated disks into consideration when calculating PCI device ID
• Fix telnet keepalive options on macOS

GUI

• Fix callback issues in found in v2.2.58

Server

• Sync appliances

GUI

• Update snapshot date & time format
• Fix bug when HTTP DELETE requests are silently dropped. Fixes #3810
• Show if a linked base VM or not in device's properties
• Add HTTP method to response timeout slot. Ref #3810
• Add default link style section in preferences
• Update the default style colors based on the interface style
• Support bring to front for vnc and spice consoles on Linux. Fixes #3783
• Update appliance schemas
• Fix bug when adding multiple nodes at the same time. Fixes #3807
• Fix QWebSocket error signal. Fixes #3804

Server

• Bundle web-ui v2.2.58
• Sync appliances
• Snapshot refactoring