Mininet Installation/Configuration Notes
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Mininet 2.1.0
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The supported installation methods for Mininet are 1) using a
pre-built VM image, and 2) native installation on Ubuntu. You can also
easily create your own Mininet VM image (4).

(Other distributions may be supported in the future - if you would
like to contribute an installation script, we would welcome it!)

1. Easiest "installation" - use our pre-built VM image!

   The easiest way to get Mininet running is to start with one of our
   pre-built virtual machine images from <http://mininet.org/>

   Boot up the VM image, log in, and follow the instructions on the
   Mininet web site.

   One advantage of using the VM image is that it doesn't mess with
   your native OS installation or damage it in any way.

   Although a single Mininet instance can simulate multiple networks
   with multiple controllers, only one Mininet instance may currently
   be run at a time, and Mininet requires root access in the machine
   it's running on.  Therefore, if you have a multiuser system, you
   may wish to consider running Mininet in a VM.

2. Next-easiest option: use our Ubuntu package!

   To install Mininet itself (i.e. `mn` and the Python API) on Ubuntu
   12.10+:

        sudo apt-get install mininet

   Note: if you are upgrading from an older version of Mininet, make
   sure you remove the old OVS from `/usr/local`:

        sudo rm /usr/local/bin/ovs*
        sudo rm /usr/local/sbin/ovs*

3. Native installation from source on Ubuntu 12.04+

   If you're reading this, you've probably already done so, but the
   command to download the Mininet source code is:

        git clone git://github.com/mininet/mininet.git

   If you are running Ubuntu, you may be able to use our handy
   `install.sh` script, which is in `mininet/util`.

   *WARNING: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!*

   `install.sh` is a bit intrusive and may possibly damage your OS
   and/or home directory, by creating/modifying several directories
   such as `mininet`, `openflow`, `oftest`, `pox`, etc..
   Although we hope it won't do anything completely terrible, you may
   want to look at the script before you run it, and you should make
   sure your system and home directory are backed up just in case!

   To install Mininet itself, the OpenFlow reference implementation, and
   Open vSwitch, you may use:

        mininet/util/install.sh -fnv

   This should be reasonably quick, and the following command should
   work after the installation:

        sudo mn --test pingall

   To install ALL of the software which we use for OpenFlow tutorials,
   including POX, the OpenFlow WireShark dissector, the `oftest`
   framework, and other potentially useful software (and to add some
   stuff to `/etc/sysctl.conf` which may or may not be useful) you may
   use:

        mininet/util/install.sh -a

   This takes about 4 minutes on our test system.

   You can change the directory where the dependencies are installed using
   the -s <directory> flag.

        mininet/util/install.sh -s <directory> -a

4. Creating your own Mininet/OpenFlow tutorial VM

   Creating your own Ubuntu Mininet VM for use with the OpenFlow tutorial
   is easy! First, create a new Ubuntu VM. Next, run two commands in it:

        wget https://raw.github.com/mininet/mininet/master/util/vm/install-mininet-vm.sh
        time install-mininet-vm.sh

   Finally, verify that Mininet is installed and working in the VM:

        sudo mn --test pingall

5. Installation on other Linux distributions

   Although we don't support other Linux distributions directly, it
   should be possible to install and run Mininet with some degree of
   manual effort.

   In general, you must have:

   * A Linux kernel compiled with network namespace support enabled

   * 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)

   We encourage contribution of patches to the `install.sh` script to
   support other Linux distributions.


Good luck!

Mininet Team

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