Mininet is a container orchestration system for network emulation. 

If you are using Mininet in a VM or on a physical server, it is easy to use onos.py to start up a complete emulated ONOS network, including ONOS cluster, modeled control network, and data network.

Note: This is work in progress - if you wish to try it now, you will need to get onos.py from the following patch: https://gerrit.onosproject.org/#/c/9143/

First, make sure that you have built ONOS using buck:

cd ~/onos
buck build onos

Next, use Mininet and onos.py to start up a virtual ONOS cluster and data network:

cd ~/onos/tools/dev/mininet
sudo mn --custom onos.py --controller onos,3 --switch onosovs --topo torus,4,4

What does this do?

--custom onos.py: uses onos.py to extend Mininet with new controller and switch types

--controller onos,3: tells Mininet to start up an ONOS controller cluster with 3 ONOS nodes

--switch onosovs: this is currently necessary to enable Mininet to automatically connect to a controller with multiple IP addresses (you can also just use --switch onos)

--topo torus,4,4: tells Mininet to use a 4x4 torus topology for the data network

How can I get more information on Mininet?

For more information on Mininet, please check out http://docs.mininet.org