Install Cloonix v24

The Cloonix open-source network simulator was recently updated to version 24. The last time I used Cloonix, it was at version 19 (see my review of Cloonix and my using the Cloonix graph interface posts). Compared to version 19, only a few details of the installation procedure have changed — the list of package dependencies is different compared to v19.

The Cloonix v24 installation procedure is documented in the README file that comes with the source code. For my own reference, I will describe the procedure, along with some additional information, in this post.

In this example, the host computer is running Xubuntu 13.10 “Saucy Salamander”. According to the Cloonix README file, the same procedure should work in any recently released Ubuntu or Debian-based Linux distribution, such as Ubuntu 14.04 “Trust Tahr”, Debian 7.5 “wheezy”, or Debian 8.0 “jessie”.

Download Cloonix v24 source files

To download the Cloonix v24 source files and install scripts, go to the Download cloonix-24.x link on Cloonix web site, or execute the following Linux commands:

$ cd ~/Downloads
$ wget http://cloonix.fr/cloonix/cloonix-current.tar.gz

NOTE: The Cloonix development team updates their software frequently and usually changes the links on their web site when they release a new version of Cloonix. So, if the direct links shown in the procedure do not work, go to the Cloonix web site and click on the download link to get the files you need.

Make the Cloonix directory

Now make a folder where we will install network simulator programs and files. In my case, I chose to make a folder called Netsims in my home directory:

$ cd ~
$ mkdir Netsims

Copy Cloonix archive into Netsims and unpack it there.

$ cd ~/Netsims
$ cp ~/Downloads/cloonix-current.tar.gz .
$ tar -xvf cloonix-current.tar.gz
$ rm cloonix-current.tar.gz

This unpacks all files in the archive and places them in a new folder named according to the release version. In this case, it is : /Netsims/cloonix-24.11

Install prerequisite software

The list of required software packages is documented in the README file in the new directory. It can change from one minor release to the next (example: it changed between v24.05 and v24.11) so check the README file for the latest installation procedure.

To install Cloonix v24.11, first install the following prerequisite packages on the host Linux computer system:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get --allow-unauthenticated -y install \
  rxvt-unicode build-essential bc libncurses5-dev \
  libssl-dev libgtk2.0-dev libcap-dev \
  libevent-dev libreadline-dev
$ sudo apt-get --allow-unauthenticated -y install \
  libsdl-dev libogg-dev libsasl2-dev \
  libgtk-3-dev intltool libjpeg8-dev \
  python-pyparsing libsoup2.4 \
  libusb-1.0-0-dev libgudev-1.0-dev

Next, ensure KVM is set up correctly:

$ sudo modprobe kvm-intel nested=1
$ sudo chmod 666 /dev/kvm

Now, go to the cloonix-24.11 folder and execute the doitall script. This will compile and install Cloonix and create a set of directories and files that support Cloonix operation.

$ cd ~/Netsims/cloonix-24.11
$ ./doitall

Download filesystems

In version 24, the cloonix now uses filesystems that include the kernel (version 19 required a separate kernel image and a separate filesystem). The Cloonix web site offers a set of prepared filesystems. In this example, we will use the Debian Jessie filesystem because it is used in the Cloonix example scripts.

The filesystems are in the Cloonix v24 downloads page, or use the following command:

$ wget http://cloonix.fr/vm/v24/jessie.qcow2.xz

Unpack filesystem into ~/Netsims/cloonix-24.05/bulk directory. We must copy the filesystem from the Downloads folder to the bulk folder and uncompress it.

$ cd ~/Netsims/cloonix-24.11/bulk
$ cp ~/Downloads/jessie.qcow2.xz .
$ unxz jessie.qcow2.xz

Start Coonix

Every time we start Cloonix, we should first ensure KVM is set up.

$ sudo modprobe kvm-intel nested=1
$ sudo chmod 666 /dev/kvm

Then, start Cloonix and the graph interface:

$ cd ~/Netsims/cloonix-24.11
$ ./start_cloonix_net
$ ./graph

After Cloonix starts, we immediately see some new interface types in the graph window. The new version of Cloonix also offers other changes. I’ll discuss the new features and functionality in a future post.