Mininet Extreme:

Extreme emulation power for the most complex networks

What is Mininet Extreme?

Mininet Extreme introduces mount and PID namespaces to Mininet. This makes it possible to execute applications in containers which require independent configuration spaces, such as Quagga or OpenVPN. Built-in configurations make adding a Quagga router to a network topology easy. In addition, Mininet Extreme is capable of connecting to the Transit Portal BGP multiplexing service to provide BGP connectivity to emulated routers.

Mininet Extreme enables emulation of complex network topologies, including networks which combine technologies such as SDN and BGP. Networks can exchange routes and traffic with the real internet by combining Mininet Extreme with Transit Portal.

Added Functionality

Mininet Extreme adds:

• Support for mount namespaces, PID namespaces, legacy switches, legacy routers

• Built-in support for the Transit Portal BGP multiplexer and Quagga router

• New utilities to support topologies with configuration data

• New examples (in the examples/ directory) to help you get started.

Features to be added

• Support for generic hosts to make use of PID and mount namespaces

• Polishing of PID namespaces, enabling individual containers to have their own init and view only their processes through ps aux & etc.

Debugging & Notes

• Errors about controllers or bridges (mn-br#) already existing

  If Mininet is not closed properly, it may not cleanup the junk (interfaces, processes, files in /tmp, etc.) which might be left around by Mininet or Linux. Try this if things stop working!

  sudo mn -c

• mount does not show the expected bindings!

  By default, mount references /etc/mtab, which is shared and updated by all containers and the host physical machine. As a result, this file does not remain in sync with the actual state of the system. To view the mounts within a specific container, execute:

  cat /proc/PID/mounts

  where PID references the bash shell or another process within the container in question. To view the current mounts of the host system, replace PID with 1

Installation and Sample Topology

See INSTALL for installation instructions and details.

Credits

The Mininet Extreme Team:

• Brandon Schlinker (Network Systems Lab, USC)

The Mininet 2.1.0 Team:

• Bob Lantz
• Brian O'Connor