The best way to emulate almost any network on your laptop!
Mininet 2.2.0
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:
sudo mn
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).
Mininet includes:
-
A command-line launcher (
mn) to instantiate networks. -
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 withmake doc. -
Parametrized topologies (
Toposubclasses) 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 (
CLIclass) which provides useful diagnostic commands (likeiperfandping), as well as the ability to run a command to a node. For example,mininet> h11 ifconfig -atells 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
This release provides a number of bug fixes as well as several new features, including:
-
Improved OpenFlow 1.3 support
mn --switch ovs,protocols=openflow13starts OVS in 1.3 modeinstall.sh -winstalls a 1.3-compatible Wireshark dissector using Loxigeninstall.sh -yinstalls the Ryu 1.3-compatible controller
-
A new
nodelib.pynode library, and newNodetypes includingLinuxBridge,OVSBridge,LinuxRouter(seeexamples/) andNAT -
A
--natoption which connects a Mininet network to your LAN using NAT (For this to work correctly, Mininet's--ipbasesubnet should not overlap with any external or internet IP addresses you wish to use) -
An improved MiniEdit GUI (
examples/miniedit.py) - thanks to Gregory Gee -
Support for multiple
--customarguments tomn -
Experimental cluster support - consult the documentation for details - as well as
examples/cluster.pyand an experimental--clusteroption for topologies built with the defaultHostandOVSSwitchclasses:mn --cluster localhost,server1,server2
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!
A number of bugs have also been fixed, most notably multiple link
support in Topo(). See github issues and the release notes on
the Mininet wiki for additional information.
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
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 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 code to the Mininet project (see CONTRIBUTORS for more info!) It is because of everyone's hard work that Mininet continues to grow and improve.
Best wishes, and we look forward to seeing what you can do with Mininet to change the networking world!
The Mininet Core Team:
- Bob Lantz
- Brian O'Connor
- Cody Burkard
Thanks again to all of the Mininet contributors, particularly Gregory Gee for his work on MiniEdit.