Mininet: Rapid Prototyping for Software Defined Networks
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The best way to emulate almost any network on your laptop!

Mininet 2.0.0rc1

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** Welcome to Mininet! **

Mininet creates virtual SDN/OpenFlow test networks by using process-based virtualization and network namespaces.

Simulated hosts (as well as switches and controllers with the user datapath) are created as processes in separate network namespaces. This allows a complete OpenFlow network to be simulated on top of a single Linux kernel.

Mininet's support for OpenFlow and Linux allows you to create a custom network with customized routing, and to run almost any Linux-compatible networking application on top of it without modification. OpenFlow-based designs that work in Mininet can usually be transferred to hardware with minimal change for full line-rate execution.

Mininet may be invoked directly from the command line, and also provides a handy Python API for creating networks of varying sizes and topologies.

** Mininet 2.0.0rc1 **

Mininet 2.0.0rc1 is a major upgrade to the Mininet system and provides a number of enhancements and new features, including:

• First-class Interface (Intf) and Link (Link) classes

• An upgraded Topology (Topo) class which supports node and link customization

• Link bandwidth limits using tc (TCIntf and TCLink classes)

• CPU isolation and bandwidth limits (CPULimitedHost class)

• Support for the Open vSwitch 1.4+ (including Ubuntu OVS packages)

• Man pages for the mn and mnexec utilities.

• Debian packaging (and apt-get install in Ubuntu 12.10)

[Since the API (most notably the topology) has changed, existing code that runs in Mininet 1.0 will need to be changed to run with Mininet 2.0. This is the primary reason for the major version number change.]

Mininet also includes:

• A simple node infrastructure (Host, Switch, Controller classes) for creating virtual OpenFlow networks

• A simple network infrastructure (Mininet class) supporting parametrized topologies (Topo subclasses.) For example, a tree network may be created with the command

  # mn --topo tree,depth=2,fanout=3

• Basic tests, including connectivity (ping) and bandwidth (iperf)

• A command-line interface (CLI class) which provides useful diagnostic commands, as well as the ability to send a command to a node. For example,

  mininet> h11 ifconfig -a

  tells host h11 to run the command ifconfig -a

• A 'cleanup' command to get rid of junk (interfaces, processes, files in /tmp, etc.) which might be left around by Mininet or Linux. Try this if things stop working!

  # mn -c

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

• Full API documentation via Python help() docstrings, as well as the ability to generate PDF/HTML documentation with "make doc."

In order to run Mininet, you must have:

• A Linux kernel compiled with network namespace support enabled (see INSTALL for additional information.)

• An OpenFlow implementation (either the reference user or kernel space implementations, or Open vSwitch.) Appropriate kernel modules (e.g. tun and ofdatapath for the reference kernel implementation) must be loaded.

• Python, bash, ping, iperf, etc.

• Root privileges (required for network device access)

Installation instructions are available in INSTALL

*** Mininet Documentation ***

In addition to the API documentation (make doc) much useful information, including a Mininet walkthrough and an introduction to the Python API is available on the Mininet Web Site. There is also a wiki which you are encouraged to read and to contribute to, particularly the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ.)

*** Mininet Support ***

Mininet is supported by the friendly Mininet community. We encourage you to join the Mininet mailing list, mininet-discuss at:

https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/mininet-discuss

*** Contributing to Mininet ***

Mininet is an open-source project and is currently hosted at https://github.com/mininet. You are encouraged to download the code, examine it, modify it, and submit bug reports, bug fixes, feature requests, and enhancements!

Best wishes, and we look forward to seeing what you can do with Mininet to change the networking world!

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Bob Lantz Brandon Heller Nikhil Handigol Vimal Jeyakumar

Mininet Project