Educational Virtual Routing Labs with IPMininet

Jadin, Mathieu [UCL] Olivier Tilmans Maxime Mawait [UCL] Olivier Bonaventure [UCL]

Learning computer networks requires to understand the interactions between various protocols and layers. While using virtual labs in networking courses is key to enable students to master their understanding, their use is often restricted to advanced courses or vendor certifications due to their complex setup. We introduce IPMininet, a virtual lab framework built on top of Mininet, as a lightweight and practical way to enable students to experiment with virtual IP network topologies. By abstracting protocol configuration and daemon management, IPMininet enables even students with no networking background to use virtual networks while speeding up exercise development for teaching staffs. We illustrate some of IPMininet’s features using a short example that spawns a virtual lab with custom AS-peering relationships, internal traffic engineering, firewall, and DNS.