Mininet is a container orchestration system for network emulation. With Mininet and onos.py, you can easily start up an ONOS cluster in a single VM.

Getting Mininet

In order to use onos.py, you need Mininet. It's easy to install Mininet on Ubuntu from a package:

apt-get install mininet

or from source:

git clone http://github.com/mininet/mininet
mininet/util/install.sh -nfv

Or you can download a pre-built Mininet VM.

Local Cluster Environment using onos.py and Mininet

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.

This simplifies development on a laptop, because you can run a single development VM (or no VM at all if you are running on a Linux machine!) Moreover, it is more efficient than a multi-VM setup because the entire emulated network lives in a single VM and shares a single Linux kernel.

Chances are you're already using Mininet, so it's nice to be able to start an ONOS cluster using Mininet itself without installing or configuring additional software.

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 in your Mininet VM or server 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 --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

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

What software switch does this use?

By default, it uses Open vSwitch. onos.py replaces the default switch with a new switch class called ONOSOVSSwitch or --switch onosovs. This switch class knows how to connect to an ONOS cluster with multiple IP addresses.

How can I use the user switch (or CPqD switch if I have it installed?)

In order to select the user switch (either Stanford reference switch or CPqD switch, depending on which one you have installed), you can use --switch onosuser.

How can I get more information on Mininet?

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

How can I specify the apps for ONOS to load?

For now, try using ONOS_APPS or connecting to the karaf console and using ONOS CLI commands.

In the future, it will be an option to --controller onos and/or ONOSCluster().

How are IP addresses of the ONOS cluster specified?

ONOSCluster takes an ipBase option; default is 192.168.123.0/24

How can I connect to the ONOS console?

Make sure karaf's bin directory is in your path, then:

client -h 192.168.123.1   # or the address of the ONOS node you wish to connect to  

How can I connect to the karaf console using ssh?

ssh -p 8101 karaf@192.168.123.1

How can I connect to the ONOS GUI if ONOS is running in a Mininet host inside a VM?

One way is to use ssh port forwarding, e.g.

ssh -L 8101:192.168.123.1:8101 mininet-vm

Then open up http://localhost:8101/onos/ui/ in your browser.

Another way is to run a browser such as Firefox or Chromium in your development VM or server.

firefox &

We hope to make it easier and more automatic in the future.

How can I look at the karaf log file?

tail -f /tmp/onos1/onos*/*karaf*/data/log/karaf.log

How can I look at the ONOS log file?

tail -f /tmp/onos1/onos*/onos.log

Can I ssh into the ONOS cluster?

Not directly with this version of onos.py, since the nodes are not running ssh by default. However, if you have a Mininet source tree, you can attach to it using mininet/util/m:

~/mininet/util/mn 192.168.123.1

Can I use the onos-* scripts from tools/test/bin with this environment?

Not currently, but you should not need to use them for the most part.