ISSN (Print) : 0974-6846

Indian Journal of Science and Technology, Vol 9(32), DOI: 10.17485/ijst/2016/v9i32/100195, August 2016 ISSN (Online) : 0974-5645

Software Defined Networks (S.D.N): Experimentation

with Mininet Topologies
Deepak Kumar* and Manu Sood
Department of Computer Science, Himachal Pradesh University, Summer Hill, Shimla 171005,
Himachal Pradesh, India; [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract
Objectives: Traditional networks were complex and difficult to manage. S.D.N is the future of programmable networks.
Our objective is to find out how host communicates in realistic networking environment. Methods/Statistical Analysis:
In order to find out how actual network works. We have used an emulator i.e. mininet. We have compared various mininet
topologies. Finally we have used one of the topology to find out how host communicate in mininet environment. We
have made one of host as the server and other may serve as a clients. Client host will request to the server to download
particular. We have used the wget linux feature to make this possible. Findings: Today S.D.N has become an important
part of networking. So it is important to emulate its behaviour. Mininet provides us with the inbuilt hosts, switches and
controller. Each of these hosts assigned with unique IP address. Each host also corresponds to xterm display option. We
can use these xterm display to make particular host as a server. Similarly we can use other xterm display for client hosts
to connect to the server through wget commands. Our finding are novel because this works has not been done before.
The works we have done shows that how client request and how server respond. When request is made by client to
download particular file. One of the advantage of using emulator is that, application that works on emulator can be easily
deployable in realistic networks. As S.D.N is a new platform so it enable the chances for the innovation of new research. As
each past work helps us to make further research. So this work also benefit other researcher somewhere. Application/
Improvements: We can make use of S.D.N in various areas like in campus area, Labs, cellular networks etc. There is always
a chance of improvement and betterment, as S.D.N is new paradigm so chances of improvement are much more. As there
are risk of security. So there are wide areas of improvements.

Keywords: Mininet, OpenFlow, Openvswitch, SDN, Virtualization

1. Introduction devices perform operations like identification of packet,

acceptance/rejection and forwarding of packet etc8. We
Software Defined Networking is rapidly growing that has have various available choices of controller for SDN like
changed the current networking by enabling program- POX9, NOX10, Onix11, beacon12 and Floodlight13. The
matic control, easier management and chances of new networks OS controls the data plane devices through
innovations1-5. All of these benefits are due to central- narrow interface called as OpenFlow14 which defines the
ized control which makes it flexible. Early networks were forwarding of low level data plane devices. SDN not only
making use of ethane6 and 4D7 approach for the network handles a complicated tasks but it does so in distributive
control and management. To make scalable network the way running in a rapidly changing environment. Modern
architecture must include local controller. The main pur- data center includes thousands of switches and hundred
pose of the local controller is to run applications closer to thousands of hosts. Therefore SDN must be replicated
underlying hardware devices in data plane. The controller across multiple servers15. To implement SDN is costly task
that resides in control plane can dynamically implement because SDN implementation requires SDN supportive
policy or rules. According to these rules forwarding plane hardware resources. Being a student it is very difficult

*Author for correspondence

 Software Defined Networks (S.D.N): Experimentation with Mininet Topologies

to buy these hardware devices to implement working 2. System Requirement for

of SDN. There are various open source network emula-
tors and simulator available online. Some of the available
Working with Mininet
emulators are Mininet16, DieCast17 and ModelNet18 etc. We can work on Mininet at various platforms like
Most used network simulator is NS-219. The one of the Windows, Linux and MAC. We have on Linux (Ubuntu
limitation of the NS-2 is it does not provides us the actual 13.10). In Ubuntu 13.10 X server is preinstalled also
networking environment. gnome terminal and SSH is built in guarantee that the
The implementation done on NS-2 cannot be easily global best is achieved.
deployable in realistic networks. So we have used Mininet
emulator because it provide realistic environment to the Laptop/Computer with at least 2 GB RAM and at
user. We can say that Mininet acts as a testing platform for least 6-8 GB of free hard disk space
the SDN. It helps us in rapidly prototyping the large net- Mininet Controller (POX9, NOX10, Beacon12,
works with constrained resources on a single computer. FloodLight13, Maestro etc.).
Mininet provides us realistic networking environment Java/Python language support.
at very cheap cost. Mininet is beneficial because it pro- Mininet
vide accuracy in performance. It is easy in use and also
provides scalability. Mininet supports various topologies
that help us in creation of thousands of nodes and can
3. Installation of Mininet
perform testing on them. We can modify the behavior of Mininet creates a network of virtual hosts, switches,
these topologies according to our need. Mininet support controllers and links. Also Mininet supports research
light weight virtualization that provides us the virtual net- learning, testing that helps us to develop network on a
work which is similar to the real network, running real single laptop or computer. We can simply install Mininet
kernel, switch and application code etc. Mininet is based on Ubuntu 13.10 using command: Sudo apt-get install
on Command Line Interface (CLI). Mininet switches Mininet23. This command easily installs the Mininet in
support Open Flow controller for software defined net- Ubuntu 13.10. If this command does not work, then firstly
working and custom topology. To start Mininet in Linux update the working platform with command: Sudo apt-
platform we enter command in terminal as: Sudo mn get update. This command will update the platform. We
In order to run Mininet as root we must use the Sudo can use the same command again to install the Mininet
keyword to run the Mininet. It starts the Mininet and cre- i.e. Sudo apt-get install Mininet. There are also other
ates the network by adding controller, hosts, and switches ways to install Mininet in Ubuntu 13.10. But this way is
& adds links between them. This command initially cre- the most simplistic one.
ates two hosts h1, h2 and switch s1. Installation of Controller

Table 1. OS Types and versions Other Requirements

OS Type OS Version Virtualization X Server Terminal
Software
Windows 7,8 Virtualbox Xming Putty
Windows XP Virtualbox Xming Putty
Mac OS X 10.7-10.8 Virtualbox Download and install Terminal.app
Lion/Mountain XQuartz (built.in)
Mac OS X 10.5-10.6 Virtualbox X11(Install from Terminal.app
Leopard/Snow OS X main system (built.in)
Leopard DVD, preferred), or
download
XQuartz
Linux Ubuntu 13.10 Virtualbox X server already Gnome terminal + SSH
installed built in

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 Deepak Kumar and Manu Sood

We also have choice of installing the controller Mininet> h1 ping -c1 h2: This command checks
according to our requirement. We have various options for the connection between host h1 and h2 for
of controller like POX9, NOX10, FloodLight13, Onix11 and one packet.
Beacon12 etc. We can choose anyone of these. Each of Mininet> h1 ifconfig -a: This command shows
these controller works on different platforms like POX/ us the hosts h1-eth0 and loopback (lo) inter-
NOX controller supports python whereas FloodLight faces. The interface h1-eth0 is not seen by the
controller supports java platform. Therefore implementa- main Linux system, when we run the ifconfig
tion of the SDN is platform independent20. We can install command. Because it is specific to host of net-
the controller of our choice using command given below: work.
Sudo apt-get install POX/FloodLight23. Mininet by Mininet> s1 ifconfig -a: As switch runs by
default includes OVCS controller and openvswitch21. But default as a root in network. Therefore running
we can use controller of our own choice. There are also command on a switch is same as running com-
others way to install controller. mand on a normal terminal.
Mininet>pingall: This command checks the
connectivity/reachability among all hosts in the
4. Basic Command Syntax while network.
Working with Mininet. To start mininet xterm display option:
$: It precedes commands that typed at shell To open xterm display in Mininet we simply use com-
prompt. mand as follows.
Mininet>: It precedes commands that typed at $ Sudo mn x: This is the basic xterm dis-
mininets CLI (Command Line Interface). play command when we run this command on
#: It precedes commands that are typed at a root Mininet it startup xterm display for host h1, h2,
shell prompt. switch s1, and controller c0.
Some important mininet CLI Commands Mininet> xterm h1 h2: The command xterm
We can take help in Mininet to make use of other com- h1 h2 open the xterm terminal for the host h1
mands. Mininet started with options that determine the and h2. Enter command in xterm of h1 i.e. ping
network topology to be created22. 10.0.0.2. It will start checking the connectivity
In order to see the help menu, we use the Mininet between host h1 and h2. Similarly we can ping
command mn with option -h as: Sudo mn -h the host h1 from h2 using command in h2 xterm
To clear Mininet we can use command as: Sudo terminal ping 10.0.0.1.
mn c
Once we enter Mininet we also have some CLI com- 5. Various Topologies in Mininet
mands. These are as follows:
Mininet>help: This command show various In mininet we have various topologies like minimal, sin-
options which we can write on Mininet CLI. gle, reversed, linear, tree topology etc.
Mininet>nodes: This command shows the nodes Minimal: It is the most basic topology with two
available in the current network of Mininet as hosts and one switch. To run minimal topology
shown in figure below. When we use this com- we simply run the following command in the ter-
mand it shows us the available nodes are c0, h1, minal window i.e. Sudo mn --topo minimal
h2, s1. These nodes are available for the Mininet Single Topology: It is the simple topology with
default minimal topology. one switch and N hosts. To run this topology we
Mininet>dump: This command shows the dump run following command in terminal window i.e.
information about all nodes available in the cur- Sudo mn topo single,3
rent Mininet network. Reversed Topology: It is similar to the single
Mininet> h1 ping h2: This command tests connection but order of connection between
the connectivity between host h1 and h2. This hosts and switch is reversed. To run reversed
command will keep checking the connectivity topology we use the command in terminal win-
between hosts until we stop the command. dow i.e. Sudo mn topo reversed,3

Vol 9 (32) | August 2016 | www.indjst.org Indian Journal of Science and Technology 3
 Software Defined Networks (S.D.N): Experimentation with Mininet Topologies

Linear Topology: It is the connection between 7. Graphical Representation of

the N hosts and N switches. We can run this
topology by writing the following command in
Mininet Topologies
terminal window i.e. Sudo mn topo linear,3
Tree Topology: A tree topology is a multilevel
topology with N levels and two hosts per switch.
To run this topology we can use the following
command in terminal window i.e. Sudo mn
topo tree,3

6. Comparison of Mininet
Topologies
Figure 1. Graphical representation of mininet topologies.
We have run various topologies over Mininet to see their
startup, stop and completion time in seconds. First we
run minimal topology which simply creates two hosts 8. Experimentation with Mininet
and one switch. Its startup, stop and completion times are
1 sec, 0.5 sec and 3.563 sec respectively. We have run various topologies over Mininet. When
we use any of topology, it creates host and switches. For
Table 2. Mininet topologies comparison example: If we use linear topology i.e. Sudo mn topo
linear, 4.This topology creates 4 hosts (h1, h2, h3, h4) and
Topology No. of Switches Startup Stop Completion
4 switches (s1, s2, s3, s4). When we use pingall statement
Host (sec) (sec) (sec)
in Mininet22, it checks connection between each of created
Minimal 2 1 1 0.5 3.563 host. When we ping between hosts in network, flow of
packet takes place; it means that there exists reachability
Single,50 50 1 9 5 14.234
between hosts. Therefore, we think if there is connectiv-
ity between hosts, there are also chances of sending files
Reversed, 50 1 9 5 14.234
between hosts with in Mininet22 network. For making this
50
really happen (i.e. sending of files between hosts) we have
Linear,10 10 10 4.5 2 7.233
used wget feature of Linux in Mininet. We can use any of
topology.
Tree,4,4 256 85 168.4 83.9 253.34

Tree,3 8 7 4 2 6.456

Second we run single topology which simply creates

50 hosts and 1 switch. Its startup, stop and comple-
tion times are 9 sec, 5 sec and 14.234 sec. Third we run
reversed topology which simply creates 50 hosts and 1
switch. Its startup, stop and completion times are 9 sec, Figure 2. CLI commands for linear topology to ping all hosts
5 sec and 14.234 sec. Four we run linear topology which in the network.
simply creates 10 hosts and 10 switches. Its startup, stop
and completion times are 4.5 sec, 2 sec and 7.233 sec. Five To send file between hosts, one option is to make one
we run Tree, 4,4 which simply creates 256 hosts and 85 host as a server and other hosts as client. Since we are
switch. Its startup, stop and completion times are 168.4 sending file between virtual hosts so all operations must
sec, 83.9 sec and 253.34 sec. Six we run Tree, 3 which be occur within mininet environment.
simply creates 8hosts and 7 switches. Its startup, stop and In this environment client host will request for partic-
completion times are 4 sec, 2 sec and 6.456 sec. ular file to the server. When one of the client host request

4 Vol 9 (32) | August 2016 | www.indjst.org Indian Journal of Science and Technology
 Deepak Kumar and Manu Sood

for particular file, firstly there must establish a connection

between client host and server host.
We are using the linear topology to perform this oper-
ation: Sudo mn topo linear, 4.This topology will create 4
hosts and 4 switches. Each of host is assigned with unique
IP address. For example: host h1 is assigned with 10.0.0.1,
host h2 is assigned with 10.0.0.2, host h3 is assigned with
10.0.0.3 and host h4 is assigned with 10.0.0.4
Figure 6. Pingall command for CLI linear topology.

9. Steps to Perform Operation

Open terminal: The first obvious step is to open the termi-
nal. When we open the terminal it looks like below figure.

Figure 3. Open Terminal.

Run the topology: The second step is to run the Figure 7. Xterm terminal for host h1, h2, h3, h4.
topology. We have used linear topology to per-
form this operation i.e. Sudo mn topo linear, 4. Now we have 4 xterm terminals for host h1, h2, h3
and h4. We have choice to make any of host as a server
and rest of host would be act like client. And they will
request to server for particular file to download. In this
topology we are making host h3 as a HTTP server. To
do this go to h3 xterm terminal and enter the command:
Figure 4. CLI command for linear topology. python -m SimpleHTTPServer 80 & Now h3 xterm act
as a server and other xterm will acts as a client.
After running Sudo mn topo linear, 4 topology.
Mininet is started with 4 hosts and 4 switches.
(After this everything will run inside Mininet).

Figure 5. Startup of Mininet for linear topology.

Now to test connectivity between hosts we will Figure 8. Host h3 as a HTTP server.
use the pingall22 command in Mininet.
Now open the xterm terminal for each of the From xterm h2 we can request server to down-
host (i.e. h1, h2, h3, h4) by entering command load file. To initiate connection between client
in Mininet terminal i.e. Mininet> xterm h1 h2 and server. We simply use the wget command,
h3 h4 which is the inbuilt feature of the Linux. To make

Vol 9 (32) | August 2016 | www.indjst.org Indian Journal of Science and Technology 5
 Software Defined Networks (S.D.N): Experimentation with Mininet Topologies

connection to the server we simply use com- The last important step to make connection and to
mand in xterm h2: wget 10.0.0.3. download file from server we will type command i.e.
This will show that connection is established between wget output-document=Downloads/Dpk.py 10.0.0.3
host h2 and server (host h3) and host h2 download the by (where 10.0.0.3 is the address of h3 host, which acts as a
default text file i.e. index.html HTTP server at post 80). When we used this command we
would be able to download file (Dpk.py) from the server.

10. Conclusion
Mininet provides us the platform to understand how
actual SDN works, by providing virtual network closer to
realistic network. It supports to run unmodified network
applications code on small as well as very large scale net-
works. Being a student, it is the most cost effective and
cheaper way to study the behavior of SDN. Since it sup-
ports various topologies, therefore we can create our own
Figure 9. Host h2 as client downloading the index.html file application on Mininet by modifying source code existing
from host h3 as server. topologies. The application those are developed on vari-
ous platforms can be easily deployable in SDN. Therefore
When we click on the file index.html it will open we can say SDN is platform independent. Mininet sup-
browser with address i.e. file:///home/deepak/ ports system level integration tests, which are iterative
index.html which includes the whole directory and easier to implement. The work that has been done on
of the system. But what if clients wants to down- Mininet can be performed in same way on SDN network.
load particular file stored in the system. So this way we can create prototype networks and later we
In this example we have file Dpk.py stored in the can implement them in realistic networks.
Download folder. So the main task is to make request to Add Recent References including Those Published in
server to download that file i.e. Dpk.py, For this to make www.indjst.org
really happen what we need to do is we again have to use
the Linux feature i.e. wget command to make request to
the server for particular what we want to download. 11. References
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