This is the repository of SONATA's emulation platform.

This emulation platform was created to support network service developers to locally prototype and test complete network service chains in realistic end-to-end multi-PoP scenarios. It allows the direct execution of real network functions, packaged as Docker containers, in emulated network topologies running locally on the network service developer's machine.

If you use son-emu for your research and/or other publications, please cite the following paper to reference our work:

• Manuel Peuster, Holger Karl, and Steven van Rossem. "MeDICINE: Rapid Prototyping of Production-Ready Network Services in Multi-PoP Environments." to appear in IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Network (NFV-SDN), 2016.
  • Pre-print online: http://arxiv.org/abs/1606.05995

A short demo that showcases son-emu together with its dummy gatekeeper is available here.

To install the emulator package in development mode, do:

• python setup.py develop

• ansible Install scripts
• misc Example packages and VNFs
• src
  • emuvim Emulator components
    • api API endpoint implementations
      • rest REST API for son-emu-cli
      • sonata Dummy gatekeeper API
    • cli Command line client to control the emulator
    • dcemulator Emulator core
      • resourcemodel Resource limitation models
  • examples Example topology scripts
  • test Test scripts
• utils Helper scripts for SONATA's CI/CD setup

• cd ~/son-emu
• sudo py.test -v src/emuvim/test/unittests

Son-emu is entirely written in Python and does not require a special build process. Please check the Installation section for more details about the installation of son-emu.

Son-emu requires the latest version of Containernet to be installed on the system.

Despite of this son-emu has the following dependencies:

• argparse >= 1.4.0 (Python software foundation License)
• docker-py == 1.7.1(Apache 2.0)
• Flask >= 0.11 (BSD)
• flask_restful >= 0.3 (BSD)
• networkx >= 1.11 (BSD)
• oslo.config >= 3.9.0 (Apache 2.0)
• prometheus_client >= 0.0.13 (Apache 2.0)
• pyaml >=15.8.2 (WTFPL)
• pytest-runner >= 2.8 (MIT)
• pytest >= 2.9 (MIT)
• requests >= 2.10 (Apache 2.0)
• ryu >= 4.4 (Apache 2.0)
• six >=1.9 (MIT)
• tabulate >= 0.7.5 (public domain)
• urllib3 >= 1.15 (MIT)
• zerorpc >= 0.5.2 (MIT)

Contributing to the son-emu is really easy. You must:

1. Clone this repository;
2. Work on your proposed changes, preferably through submiting issues;
3. Submit a Pull Request;
4. Follow/answer related issues (see Feedback-Chanel, below).

There are two ways to install and use son-emu. The simple one is to use Vagrant to create a VirtualBox-based VM on you machine that contains the pre-installed and configured emulator. The more complicated installation requires a freshly installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and is done by a ansible playbook.

• Request VirtualBox and Vagrant to be installed on the system.
• git clone https://github.com/sonata-nfv/son-emu.git
• cd ~/son-emu
• vagrant up
• vagrant ssh to enter the new VM in which the emulator is installed.

Follow the MOTD in the VM to run the example topology and the dummy-gatekeeper. The dummy-gatekeeper's default port 5000 is forwarded to the host machine and can be accessed from it by using, e.g., curl http://127.0.0.1:5000/packages.

• Requires: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
• sudo apt-get install ansible git aptitude
• sudo vim /etc/ansible/hosts
• Add: localhost ansible_connection=local

• cd
• git clone https://github.com/containernet/containernet.git
• cd ~/containernet/ansible
• sudo ansible-playbook install.yml
• Wait (and have a coffee) ...

• cd
• git clone https://github.com/sonata-nfv/son-emu.git
• cd ~/son-emu/ansible
• sudo ansible-playbook install.yml

This simple example shows how to start the emulator with a simple topology (terminal 1) and how to start (terminal 2) some empty VNF containers in the emulated datacenters (PoPs) by using the son-emu-cli.

• First terminal (start the emulation platform):
• sudo python src/emuvim/examples/simple_topology.py
• Second terminal:
• son-emu-cli compute start -d datacenter1 -n vnf1
• son-emu-cli compute start -d datacenter1 -n vnf2
• son-emu-cli compute list
• First terminal:
• containernet> vnf1 ifconfig
• containernet> vnf1 ping -c 2 vnf2

This example shows how to deploy a SONATA example package in the emulator using the dummy gatekeeper.

• First terminal (start the emulation platform):
• sudo python src/emuvim/examples/sonata_y1_demo_topology_1.py
• Second terminal (deploy the example package):
• Upload: curl -i -X POST -F package=@sonata-demo-docker.son http://127.0.0.1:5000/packages
• Instantiate: curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:5000/instantiations -d "{}"
• Verify that service runs: son-emu-cli compute list

Note: The son-push tool can be used instead of CURL.

• Full CLI command documentation
• Requirements for Docker containers executed by the emulator

Son-emu is published under Apache 2.0 license. Please see the LICENSE file for more details.

• Mininet

The following lead developers are responsible for this repository and have admin rights. They can, for example, merge pull requests.

• Manuel Peuster (https://github.com/mpeuster)
• Steven Van Rossem (https://github.com/stevenvanrossem)

• Hadi Razzaghi Kouchaksaraei (https://github.com/hadik3r)
• Wouter Tavernier (https://github.com/wtaverni)
• Geoffroy Chollon (https://github.com/cgeoffroy)

• You may use the mailing list sonata-dev@lists.atosresearch.eu
• GitHub issues