Open Source Networking

Descriptions of open source networking software for Linux or BSD systems: configuration, operation, maintenance

Installing Netkit

We will install the Netkit open-source network simulator on an Ubuntu Linux 12.04 system that is installed on a virtual machine on my iMac. As I’ve mentioned before, running Linux in a virtual machine on a Windows or a Mac is a convenient way to experiment with different Linux systems and software. Netkit, because it […]

Install Cloonix on a Knoppix USB flash drive

We will install the Cloonix open-source network simulator on a Knoppix Live USB drive. Knoppix is a version of Linux that is designed to boot from a CD, DVD, or USB drive. It can run on almost any computer hardware and it runs in memory, so it does not affect the hard drive of computer

Using Cloonix: the graph interface

I used the Cloonix open-source network simulator to simulate a very simple network. This helped me understand how to use the “point and click” functionality provided by the graph function to manually build and configure a test network. I also hope that the following procedure would be useful as a simple tutorial for anyone interested

Compiling Cloonix on Ubuntu 12.04 Live

For a while now, I’ve been trying to get the Cloonix open-source network simulator working on a computer running the Knoppix Linux distribution. I wanted to run everything on a USB Flash stick that could be attached to any computer and to create a portable version of Cloonix. Since I cannot yet run Cloonix in

Cloonix network simulator test drive

This article describes my first experience with the cloonix open-source network simulator. I installed cloonix on ubuntu 12.04 and tested it by running the demonstration script provided with the cloonix package. The demonstration script sets up a simulated OSPF network and runs HTTP traffic between two virtual computers attached to that network. The cloonix package

One million virtual machines on the march

A network of virtual machines can be used for practical testing and research. Sandia National Laboratories recently announced that they have created a virtual network of three hundred thousand virtual machines, each of which is running the Android operating system, on a single large supercomputer. In the recent past the researchers at Sandia National Laboratories

Why use a Virtual Machine?

I am building a virtual machine that will run the open-source network simulation tools that I want to research. There are good reasons to use a virtual machine for these experiments, even if software running inside a virtual machine may run slightly slower than software running on a native host. Below, I list the benefits

Auditing Introduction to Computer Networks

Today, I registered for the on-line course, Introduction to Computer Networks, presented by Stanford University. The class, which starts on October 8, is a massive open online course. One of the instructors, Nick McKeown, co-founded and sold three technology companies of which the most notable is Nicara, which focused on Software Defined Networks. So, I

NetKit test drive

Let’s look at the NetKit network simulator first. NetKit offers some useful prepared labs and provides the NetKit files already installed on a Knoppix LiveDVD. These assets make it easy to try out Netkit. To take a first look at NetKit, we will load the LiveDVD into a VirtualBox virtual machine running on our computer

A quick thought on virtualization

I chose to look at the NetKit network simulation tool first for two reasons: NetKit has an adequate number of lab scenarios ready to use and it is available as a bootable disk image, which makes it easy to just try it out. Because I wanted to keep things simple and avoid repartitioning my hard

Even more open-source network simulators

NOTE updated February 26, 2013: This post contains old information. I created a page that lists all the open-source network simulators listed in the post below. I will keep the page up-to-date. Please see the List of Open-Source Network Simulators page. I am impressed with the number of network simulation tools available as open-source software.

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