Status report

To cite this version:Vincent Autefage, Damien Magoni. NEmu: A distributed testbed for the virtualization of dynamic, fixed and mobile networks. Computer Communications, Elsevier, 2016, 80, pp.33-44. 10.1016/j.comcom.2016 AbstractExperimentation is typically the last step before launching a network application on a large production scale. However, it is often difficult to gather enough hardware resources for experimenting with a reasonably sized distributed application inside a controlled environment. Virtualization is thus a handy technique for creating such an experimentation testbed. We propose a tool called NEmu designed to create virtual dynamic networks by using emulation for testing and evaluating prototypes of networked or distributed applications with a complete control over the network topology and link parameters. NEmu leverages system emulators such as QEMU for virtualizing the hosts and the routers. It uses vnd for virtualizing components such as links and switches. In addition, NEmu allows users to create such customized topologies with limited hardware resources and without any administrative rights. We validate NEmu by replicating two network experiments and by showing that NEmu gives results very similar to the original ones.

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“…Marionnet [53] is a virtual environment dedicated to teaching. It provides several network services and the community aspect but relies on UML.…”

Section: Network Virtualization Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

NEmu: A distributed testbed for the virtualization of dynamic, fixed and mobile networks

Autefage

Magoni

2016

Computer Communications

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“…Such a system cannot be distributed. Marionnet [29] is a virtual environment dedicated to teaching. It provides several network services and the community aspect but relies on UML.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Virtualization toolset for emulating mobile devices and networks

Autefage

Magoni

Murphy

2016

Proceedings of the International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems

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With the ubiquitous usage of mobile devices, most communications are now impacted by the users' mobility. Therefore, applications and services must be designed to cope with network dynamics produced by those mobility patterns. Software research and development would benefit from taking device mobility into account. However, implementing and testing software on real devices is costly and cumbersome to perform. Virtualization is a widely used technique for avoiding these issues. In this paper, we propose three tools for creating and managing networks with mobile devices. Both network devices and user devices are emulated, the latter by using the QEMU system emulator. We implemented a virtual network device that can emulate access points and wireless interfaces, a real-time mobility engine that controls the dynamics of the connections and a control and management tool. Our toolset, called NEmu, can create both infrastructure and adhoc virtual networks for testing and evaluating applications with a fine-grained control over the network topology and link parameters. Results show that NEmu gives similar results as container-based virtualization and discrete event-based simulation.

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“…With the goal of supporting easy experimentation and teaching of networking concepts, many projects offer a user interface that allows to create and configure complex networks while hiding the details of the underlying virtualization technologies (the authors of [23] advocate 'more novelty, less grunt work'). Some of these projects even provide the user with a graphical user interface, such as CORE [24,25], IMUNES [26,27], Marionnet [28,29], EstiNet (formerly NCTUns) [30], GINI [31,32], and Cloonix [33]. CORE emulates networks by using abstraction functions offered by the underlying operating system (Linux or BSD), without creating complete virtual machines.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Netkit: network emulation for education

Pizzonia

Rimondini

2014

Softw Pract Exp

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Summary In the era of virtualization, virtual networking plays an important role. Besides production use, virtual networking can be effectively adopted in many other contexts where accurate emulation of functionalities is important, like testing before deployment, evaluation of what‐if scenarios, research, and, increasingly, didactics. In this paper, we describe our 10‐year experience in designing, implementing, using, and maintaining Netkit, an environment for simple, inexpensive, and lightweight network emulation targeted at didactics. We analyze the peculiar requirements in this context and discuss how the architecture chosen for Netkit is tailored to fulfill them. We show that Netkit is particularly well suited for a quick preparation of complex network scenarios comprising a wide range of networking technologies. These scenarios can be specified using configuration languages that are similar to those used on real devices and, once set up, can be easily distributed via email or published on the Web. Netkit comes with a rich set of ready‐to‐use pre‐configured networks, accompanied by lecture slides that enable users to immediately experiment with specific case studies. To complete the picture, we report our experience in supporting and fostering the growth of the community of users revolving around Netkit: more than 15 educational institutions worldwide take advantage of Netkit, allowing teachers and students to practice with realistic networks without the need of expensive laboratories. We also detail how we profitably use Netkit within advanced academic‐level networking courses and related examinations at the Roma Tre University. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Status report

Cited by 10 publications

References 13 publications

NEmu: A distributed testbed for the virtualization of dynamic, fixed and mobile networks

NEmu: A distributed testbed for the virtualization of dynamic, fixed and mobile networks

Virtualization toolset for emulating mobile devices and networks

Netkit: network emulation for education

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