/containernet

Mininet fork that adds container (e.g. Docker) support.

Primary LanguagePythonOtherNOASSERTION

Containernet

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Containernet: Mininet fork that allows to use Docker containers as hosts in emulated networks

This fork of Mininet allows to use Docker containers as Mininet hosts. This enables interesting functionalities to built networking/cloud testbeds. The integration is done by subclassing the original Host class.

Based on: Mininet 2.2.1

Cite this work

If you use Containernet for your research and/or other publications, please cite (beside the original Mininet paper) the following paper to reference our work:

NFV multi-PoP Extension

There is an extension of Containernet called son-emu which is a full-featured multi-PoP emulation platform for NFV scenarios which is developed as part of the SONATA project.

Features

  • Add, remove Docker containers to Mininet topologies
  • Connect Docker containers to topology (to switches, other containers, or legacy Mininet hosts )
  • Execute commands inside Docker containers by using the Mininet CLI
  • Dynamic topology changes (lets behave like a small cloud ;-) )
  • Add Hosts/Docker containers to a running Mininet topology
  • Connect Hosts/Docker containers to a running Mininet topology
  • Remove Hosts/Docker containers/Links from a running Mininet topology
  • Resource limitation of Docker containers
  • CPU limitation with Docker CPU share option
  • CPU limitation with Docker CFS period/quota options
  • Memory/swap limitation
  • Change CPU/mem limitations at runtime!
  • Traffic control links (delay, bw, loss, jitter)
  • (missing: TCLink support for dynamically added containers/hosts)
  • Automated unit tests for all new features
  • Automated installation based on Ansible playbook

Installation

Automatic installation is provided through an Ansible playbook.

  • Requires: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
sudo apt-get install ansible git aptitude
git clone https://github.com/containernet/containernet.git
cd containernet/ansible
sudo ansible-playbook -i "localhost," -c local install.yml

Wait (and have a coffee) ...

Usage / Run

Start example topology with some empty Docker containers connected to the network.

  • cd containernet
  • run: sudo python examples/containernet_example.py
  • use: containernet> d1 ifconfig to see config of container d1

Topology example

In your custom topology script you can add Docker hosts as follows:

info('*** Adding docker containers\n')
d1 = net.addDocker('d1', ip='10.0.0.251', dimage="ubuntu:trusty")
d2 = net.addDocker('d2', ip='10.0.0.252', dimage="ubuntu:trusty", cpu_period=50000, cpu_quota=25000)
d3 = net.addHost('d3', ip='11.0.0.253', cls=Docker, dimage="ubuntu:trusty", cpu_shares=20)
d4 = net.addDocker('d4', dimage="ubuntu:trusty", volumes=["/:/mnt/vol1:rw"])

Tests

There is a set of Containernet specific unit tests located in mininet/test/test_containernet.py. To run these, do:

  • sudo py.test -v mininet/test/test_containernet.py

Vagrant support

Using the provided Vagrantfile is the most simple way to run and test Containernet:

git clone https://github.com/containernet/containernet.git
cd containernet
vagrant up
vagrant ssh

Nested Docker Deployment

Containernet can be executed within a privileged container (nested container deployment).

# build the container
docker build -t containernet-img .
# run the container
docker run --name containernet -it --rm --privileged --pid='host' -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock containernet-img /bin/bash

Contact

Support

If you have any questions, please use GitHub's issue system or Containernet's Gitter channel to get in touch.

Contribute

Your contributions are very welcome! Please fork the GitHub repository and create a pull request. We use Travis-CI to automatically test new commits.

Lead developer:

Manuel Peuster