CORE Developer's Guide

Table of Contents {:toc}

Source Code Guide

The CORE source consists of several different programming languages for historical reasons. Current development focuses on the Python modules and daemon. Here is a brief description of the source directories.

These are being actively developed as of CORE 5.1:

gui - Tcl/Tk GUI. This uses Tcl/Tk because of its roots with the IMUNES project.
daemon - Python modules are found in the :file:daemon/core directory, the daemon under :file:daemon/scripts/core-daemon
netns - Python extension modules for Linux Network Namespace support are in :file:netns.
doc - Documentation for the manual lives here in reStructuredText format.

Not actively being developed:

ns3 - Python ns3 script support for running CORE.

The CORE API

The CORE API is used between different components of CORE for communication. The GUI communicates with the CORE daemon using the API. One emulation server communicates with another using the API. The API also allows other systems to interact with the CORE emulation. The API allows another system to add, remove, or modify nodes and links, and enables executing commands on the emulated systems. Wireless link parameters are updated on-the-fly based on node positions.

CORE listens on a local TCP port for API messages. The other system could be software running locally or another machine accessible across the network.

The CORE API is currently specified in a separate document, available from the CORE website.

Linux network namespace Commands

Linux network namespace containers are often managed using the Linux Container Tools or lxc-tools package. The lxc-tools website is available here http://lxc.sourceforge.net/ for more information. CORE does not use these management utilities, but includes its own set of tools for instantiating and configuring network namespace containers. This section describes these tools.

vnoded command

The vnoded daemon is the program used to create a new namespace, and listen on a control channel for commands that may instantiate other processes. This daemon runs as PID 1 in the container. It is launched automatically by the CORE daemon. The control channel is a UNIX domain socket usually named /tmp/pycore.23098/n3, for node 3 running on CORE session 23098, for example. Root privileges are required for creating a new namespace.

vcmd command

The vcmd program is used to connect to the vnoded daemon in a Linux network namespace, for running commands in the namespace. The CORE daemon uses the same channel for setting up a node and running processes within it. This program has two required arguments, the control channel name, and the command line to be run within the namespace. This command does not need to run with root privileges.

When you double-click on a node in a running emulation, CORE will open a shell window for that node using a command such as:

gnome-terminal -e vcmd -c /tmp/pycore.50160/n1 -- bash

Similarly, the IPv4 routes Observer Widget will run a command to display the routing table using a command such as:

vcmd -c /tmp/pycore.50160/n1 -- /sbin/ip -4 ro

core-cleanup script

A script named core-cleanup is provided to clean up any running CORE emulations. It will attempt to kill any remaining vnoded processes, kill any EMANE processes, remove the :file:/tmp/pycore.* session directories, and remove any bridges or ebtables rules. With a -d option, it will also kill any running CORE daemon.

netns command

The netns command is not used by CORE directly. This utility can be used to run a command in a new network namespace for testing purposes. It does not open a control channel for receiving further commands.

Other Useful Commands

Here are some other Linux commands that are useful for managing the Linux network namespace emulation.

# view the Linux bridging setup
brctl show
# view the netem rules used for applying link effects
tc qdisc show
# view the rules that make the wireless LAN work
ebtables -L

Example Command Usage

Below is a transcript of creating two emulated nodes and connecting them together with a wired link:

# create node 1 namespace container
vnoded -c /tmp/n1.ctl -l /tmp/n1.log -p /tmp/n1.pid
# create a virtual Ethernet (veth) pair, installing one end into node 1
ip link add name n1.0.1 type veth peer name n1.0
ip link set n1.0 netns `cat /tmp/n1.pid`
vcmd -c /tmp/n1.ctl -- ip link set lo up
vcmd -c /tmp/n1.ctl -- ip link set n1.0 name eth0 up
vcmd -c /tmp/n1.ctl -- ip addr add 10.0.0.1/24 dev eth0

# create node 2 namespace container
vnoded -c /tmp/n2.ctl -l /tmp/n2.log -p /tmp/n2.pid
# create a virtual Ethernet (veth) pair, installing one end into node 2
ip link add name n2.0.1 type veth peer name n2.0
ip link set n2.0 netns `cat /tmp/n2.pid`
vcmd -c /tmp/n2.ctl -- ip link set lo up
vcmd -c /tmp/n2.ctl -- ip link set n2.0 name eth0 up
vcmd -c /tmp/n2.ctl -- ip addr add 10.0.0.2/24 eth0

# bridge together nodes 1 and 2 using the other end of each veth pair
brctl addbr b.1.1
brctl setfd b.1.1 0
brctl addif b.1.1 n1.0.1
brctl addif b.1.1 n2.0.1
ip link set n1.0.1 up
ip link set n2.0.1 up
ip link set b.1.1 up

# display connectivity and ping from node 1 to node 2
brctl show
vcmd -c /tmp/n1.ctl -- ping 10.0.0.2

The above example script can be found as twonodes.sh in the examples/netns directory. Use core-cleanup to clean up after the script.

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