Features/Ns3

= ns-3 Network Simulator =

Summary
Specfile is posted for review: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=807821

Design packaging scheme for ns-3 network simulator and provide it in Fedora.

Pretty usable spec file (both C++ and Python simulations work) for ns-3 version 3.14 pulled from hg repository is available:

specfile

still missing: visualizer (TODO), nsc (TODO), click (TODO), openflow (might consider it when/if Blake Hurd's changes go upstream, see below for details).

To use the specfile, you must: tar cvjf ns-allinone-3.14.tar.bz2 ns-allinone-3.14
 * get ns-allinone-3.13.tar.bz2 and unpack it, manually rename ns-allinone-3.13 to ns-allinone-3.14, remove ns-3.13 inside of it
 * get ns-3-dev using Mercurial, manually rename ns-3-dev to ns-3.14 and move it inside previously created ns-allinone-3.14
 * change ns-allinone-3.14/ns-3.14/VERSION from 3-dev to 3.14
 * make tar archive compressed with bzip2

Once ns-3.14 is out, all this will not be needed.

To use ns-3 when installed via RPMs, you must use pkgconfig, e.g.

$ g++ first.cc `pkg-config --libs --cflags libns3.14-core-debug libns3.14-network-debug libns3.14-internet-debug libns3.14-point-to-point-debug libns3.14-applications-debug`

Owner

 * Name: Vedran Miletić
 * Email: rivanvx at gmail dot com

Current status

 * Targeted release: Fedora 17
 * Last updated: 2012-04-06
 * Percentage of completion: 91%

Detailed Description
"ns-3 is a discrete-event network simulator for Internet systems, targeted primarily for research and educational use. ns-3 is free software, licensed under the GNU GPLv2 license, and is publicly available for research, development, and use.

ns-3 is intended as an eventual replacement for the popular ns-2 simulator." (ns-3 home page)

For now, we package ns-3.14 development version, but it's very likely that final version will be available in time for Fedora 17, so we will upgrade to that. The reason why we have choosen to target Fedora 17 even though spec has been ready for a while is to take time to work with upstream on fixing issues in the installation process, so it's highly likely that we will be able to package ns-3 without any extra patches.

Benefit to Fedora
Fedora will be more attractive to researchers, teachers and students in field of computer networks since it will be much easier to install and use ns-3.

ns-2 is widely used in academia, and it's expected that ns-3 will follow that suit. There are already a couple of courses using ns-3. (Tom Henderson keynote at WNS3 2011 mentions three, but there are at least three more: CS641 at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, S-38.2188 at Aalto University, CS640 at Brigham Young University)

Scope
This is an isolated change, that requires adding packages to Fedora. ns-3 has quite some dependancies, and most of them are already in Fedora (see below).

How To Test
Tests and scripts used for testing simulator itself are provided in ns-3 and can also be packaged.

No special hardware or software is required; testing is handled by ns-3's test.py script that builds tests and executes them.

User Experience
Researchers, teachers and students will be able to install ns-3 much easier.

Dependencies
Definitly needed:
 * everything mentioned in Fedora installation at nsnam wiki
 * waf, bundled with ns-3, needed only for building
 * PyBindGen, bundled in ns-3-allinone, needed only for building

Not needed but will package since it's easy to do:
 * PyGraphviz, should be similar to NetworkX in terms of packaging (TODO), https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=740687
 * NSC, bundled in ns-3-allinone
 * Click Modular Router (bug 709082)

Possibly useful in the future/would be cool to have:
 * LXC, already in Fedora
 * OpenFlow, Blake Hurd's modified OpenFlow that works with ns-3
 * NetAnim 3.0
 * NEPI/NETNS/NEF

Contingency Plan
Release without ns-3 included.

Documentation

 * ns-3 Documenation
 * ns-3 Wiki
 * ns-3 Wiki: Installation

Release Notes
ns-3 is a discrete-event network simulator for Internet systems, targeted primarily for research and educational use. ns-3 is now included in Fedora. This makes it easier for researchers, teachers and students in field of computer networks to install it and use it.

Comments and Discussion

 * See Talk:Features/Ns3