Newer
Older
Mininet: Rapid Prototyping for Software Defined Networks
========================================================
*The best way to emulate almost any network on your laptop!*
Mininet emulates a complete network of hosts, links, and switches
on a single machine. To create a sample two-host, one-switch network,
just run:
Mininet is useful for interactive development, testing, and demos,
especially those using OpenFlow and SDN. OpenFlow-based network
controllers prototyped in Mininet can usually be transferred to
hardware with minimal changes for full line-rate execution.
Mininet creates virtual networks using process-based virtualization
and network namespaces - features that are available in recent Linux
kernels. In Mininet, hosts are emulated as `bash` processes running in
a network namespace, so any code that would normally run on a Linux
server (like a web server or client program) should run just fine
within a Mininet "Host". The Mininet "Host" will have its own private
network interface and can only see its own processes. Switches in
Mininet are software-based switches like Open vSwitch or the OpenFlow
reference switch. Links are virtual ethernet pairs, which live in the
Linux kernel and connect our emulated switches to emulated hosts
(processes).
* A handy Python API for creating networks of varying sizes and
topologies.
* 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`.
* Parametrized topologies (`Topo` subclasses) using the Mininet
object. For example, a tree network may be created with the
command:
`mn --topo tree,depth=2,fanout=3`
* A command-line interface (`CLI` class) which provides useful
diagnostic commands (like `iperf` and `ping`), as well as the
ability to run a command to a node. For example,
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!
Mininet 2.1.0 provides a number of bug fixes as well as
several new features, including:
* Convenient access to Mininet() as a dict of nodes
* X11 tunneling (wireshark in Mininet hosts, finally!)
* Accurate reflection of the Mininet() object in the CLI
* Automatically detecting and adjusting resource limits
* Automatic cleanup on failure of the `mn` command
* Preliminary support (`IVSSwitch()`) for the Indigo Virtual Switch
* support for installing the OpenFlow 1.3 versions of the reference
user switch and NOX from CPqD
We have provided several new examples (which can easily be
imported to provide useful functionality) including:
* Connecting Mininet hosts the internet (or a LAN) using NAT
* Creating per-host custom directories using bind mounts
Note that examples contain experimental features which might
"graduate" into mainline Mininet in the future, but they should
not be considered a stable part of the Mininet API!
See `INSTALL` for installation instructions and details.
In addition to the API documentation (`make doc`), much useful
information, including a Mininet walkthrough and an introduction
[Mininet Web Site](http://mininet.org).
There is also a wiki which you are encouraged to read and to
contribute to, particularly the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ.)
Mininet is community-supported. We encourage you to join the
Mininet mailing list, `mininet-discuss` at:
<https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/mininet-discuss>
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, new features and other issues and pull requests.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the project
(see CONTRIBUTORS for more info!)
Best wishes, and we look forward to seeing what you can do with
Mininet to change the networking world!