core-extra/docs/install.md

Installation

• Table of Contents {:toc}

Overview

CORE provides a script to help automate the installation of dependencies, build and install, and either generate a CORE specific python virtual environment or build and install a python wheel.

WARNING: if Docker is installed, the default iptable rules will block CORE traffic

Requirements

Any computer capable of running Linux should be able to run CORE. Since the physical machine will be hosting numerous containers, as a general rule you should select a machine having as much RAM and CPU resources as possible.

• Linux Kernel v3.3+
• iproute2 4.5+ is a requirement for bridge related commands
• nftables compatible kernel and nft command line tool

Supported Linux Distributions

Plan is to support recent Ubuntu and CentOS LTS releases.

Verified:

• Ubuntu - 18.04, 20.04
• CentOS - 7.8, 8.0

NOTE: Ubuntu 20.04 requires installing legacy ebtables for WLAN functionality

Enabling ebtables legacy:

sudo apt install ebtables
update-alternatives --set ebtables /usr/sbin/ebtables-legacy

NOTE: CentOS 8 does not provide legacy ebtables support, WLAN will not function properly

NOTE: CentOS 8 does not have the netem kernel mod available by default

CentOS 8 Enabled netem:

sudo yum update
# restart into updated kernel
sudo yum install -y kernel-modules-extra
sudo modprobe sch_netem

Tools Used

The following tools will be leveraged during installation:

Tool	Description
pip	used to install pipx
pipx	used to install standalone python tools (invoke, poetry)
invoke	used to run provided tasks (install, uninstall, reinstall, etc)
poetry	used to install python virtual environment or building a python wheel

Files

The following is a list of files that would be installed after running the automated installation.

NOTE: the default install prefix is /usr/local, but can be changed as noted below

• executable files
  • <prefix>/bin/{core-daemon, core-gui, vcmd, vnoded, etc}
• tcl/tk gui files
  • <prefix>/lib/core
  • <prefix>/share/core/icons
• example imn files
  • <prefix>/share/core/examples
• python files
  • poetry virtual env
    • cd <repo>/daemon && poetry env info
    • ~/.cache/pypoetry/virtualenvs/
  • local python install
    • default install path for python3 installation of a wheel
    • python3 -c "import core; print(core.__file__)"
• configuration files
  • /etc/core/{core.conf, logging.conf}
• ospf mdr repository files
  • <repo>/../ospf-mdr
• emane repository files
  • <repo>/../emane

Installed Executables

After the installation complete it will have installed the following scripts.

Name	Description
core-cleanup	tool to help removed lingering core created containers, bridges, directories
core-cli	tool to query, open xml files, and send commands using gRPC
core-daemon	runs the backed core server providing TLV and gRPC APIs
core-gui	runs the legacy tcl/tk based GUI
core-imn-to-xml	tool to help automate converting a .imn file to .xml format
core-manage	tool to add, remove, or check for services, models, and node types
core-pygui	runs the new python/tk based GUI
core-python	provides a convenience for running the core python virtual environment
core-route-monitor	tool to help monitor traffic across nodes and feed that to SDT
core-service-update	tool to update automate modifying a legacy service to match current naming
coresendmsg	tool to send TLV API commands from command line

Upgrading from Older Release

Please make sure to uninstall any previous installations of CORE cleanly before proceeding to install.

Clearing out a current install from 7.0.0+, making sure to provide options used for install (-l or -p).

cd <CORE_REPO>
inv uninstall <options>

Previous install was built from source for CORE release older than 7.0.0:

cd <CORE_REPO>
sudo make uninstall
make clean
./bootstrap.sh clean

Installed from previously built packages:

# centos
sudo yum remove core
# ubuntu
sudo apt remove core

Automated Install

First we will need to clone and navigate to the CORE repo.

# clone CORE repo
git clone https://github.com/coreemu/core.git
cd core

First you can use setup.sh as a convenience to install tooling for running invoke tasks:

NOTE: setup.sh will attempt to determine your OS by way of /etc/os-release, currently it supports attempts to install OSs that are debian/redhat like (yum/apt).

• python3, pip, venv
• pipx 0.16.4 via pip
• invoke 1.4.1 via pipx
• poetry 1.1.7 via pipx

Then you can run inv install <options>:

• installs system dependencies for building core
• installs core into poetry managed virtual environment or locally, if flag is passed
• installs scripts pointing to appropriate python location based on install type
• installs systemd service pointing to appropriate python location based on install type
• clone/build/install working version of OPSF MDR

NOTE: installing locally comes with its own risks, it can result it potential dependency conflicts with system package manager installed python dependencies

NOTE: provide a prefix that will be found on path when running as sudo, if the default prefix /usr/local will not be valid

inv -h install

Usage: inv[oke] [--core-opts] install [--options] [other tasks here ...]

Docstring:
  install core, poetry, scripts, service, and ospf mdr

Options:
  -d, --dev                          install development mode
  -i STRING, --install-type=STRING   used to force an install type, can be one of the following (redhat, debian)
  -l, --local                        determines if core will install to local system, default is False
  -o, --[no-]ospf                    disable ospf installation
  -p STRING, --prefix=STRING         prefix where scripts are installed, default is /usr/local
  -v, --verbose                      enable verbose

# install core to virtual environment
./install.sh -p <prefix>

# install core locally
./install.sh -p <prefix> -l

After installation has completed you should be able to run core-daemon and core-gui.

Using Invoke Tasks

The invoke tool installed by way of pipx provides conveniences for running CORE tasks to help ensure usage of the create python virtual environment.

inv --list

Available tasks:

  install         install core, poetry, scripts, service, and ospf mdr
  install-emane   install emane python bindings into the core virtual environment
  reinstall       run the uninstall task, get latest from specified branch, and run install task
  test            run core tests
  test-emane      run core emane tests
  test-mock       run core tests using mock to avoid running as sudo
  uninstall       uninstall core, scripts, service, virtual environment, and clean build directory

Enabling Service

After installation, the core service is not enabled by default. If you desire to use the service, run the following commands.

sudo systemctl enable core-daemon
sudo systemctl start core-daemon

Unsupported Linux Distribution

For unsupported OSs you could attempt to do the following to translate an installation to your use case.

• make sure you have python3.6+ with venv support
• make sure you have python3 invoke available to leverage <repo>/tasks.py

# this will print the commands that would be ran for a given installation
# type without actually running them, they may help in being used as
# the basis for translating to your OS
inv install --dry -v -p <prefix> -i <install type>

Running User Scripts

If you create your own python scripts to run CORE directly or using the gRPC/TLV APIs you will need to make sure you are running them within context of the installed virtual environment. To help support this CORE provides the core-python executable. This executable will allow you to enter CORE's python virtual environment interpreter or to run a script within it.

For installations installed to a virtual environment:

core-python <script>

For local installations:

python3 <script>

Installing EMANE

NOTE: installng emane for the virtual environment is known to work for 1.21+

The recommended way to install EMANE is using prebuilt packages, otherwise you can follow their instructions for installing from source. Installation information can be found here.

There is an invoke task to help install the EMANE bindings into the CORE virtual environment, when needed.

cd <CORE_REPO>
inv install-emane