Netkit

The poor man's system to experiment computer networking

News

2008/07/03	Alessio Di Fazio and Paolo Minasi contributed a first release of VisualNetkit, a graphical interface for Netkit. Their tool features a plugin architecture such that every feature of a network element (virtual machine, collision domain, link/interface) is provided by a different plugin. Selectively enabling plugins on a network element equips that element with the desired functionalities. The tool can be downloaded from the Download Contributions area.
2008/01/11	The mailing list archives are now public. Check the Credits & Contacts area for more information.
2008/01/10	A major Netkit upgrade has been released, involving the core tools, the kernel, and the filesystem. Among the most important improvements there is support for MPLS routing (thanks to the implementation by James R. Leu and Ramon Casellas) and a newly rebuilt filesystem which includes an SNMP enabled version of Quagga and a release of the XORP routing platform. Please refer to the Download page for more information about the improvements and to obtain the new releases.
2007/12/06	Two new sections of the web site have been opened. One accommodates contributed links to external labs, tutorials, and related documentation. The other contains links to projects that are in some way related to Netkit. The pages can be accessed from the Labs & Slides and Download areas, respectively. Alternatively, you can use these direct links: Other Labs and Related Resources, Other Related Downloads.
2007/11/23	Time for upgrades. A new release (2.5) of the core package is out, which fixes some longstanding bugs. New releases of the filesystem and of the kernel have also been published in order to comply with the new directory naming convention. All the packages are available in the Download page. Please read the notice on that page carefully before blindly downloading the whole shebang.
2007/11/01	A new lab has been published. The lab proposes different solutions to implement the architecture of a provider offering transit service. The associated documentation proposes a detailed analysis of the solutions together with interactive experiences that include debugging forwarding loops as well as configuring tunnels. The new lab is available in the Labs & Slides page.
2007/10/17	A new version of the UML kernel for the virtual machines has been released. Changes include support for the SELinux infrastructure and improved performance which considerably shortens the startup time of virtual machines. The new kernel is available in the Download page.
2007/06/20	A FAQ section has been opened, containing solutions to some of the issues that Netkit users have been reporting most commonly. Also, the Labs & Slides page now has a Contributed Labs area, where labs submitted by Netkit users can be published.
2007/06/08	A Screenshots page has been added. Also, the Download page has been reorganized to better accommodate contributions from Netkit users.
2007/06/07	A Features page has been added, describing some basics of the architecture of Netkit as well as the networking technologies it currently supports. Also, the Status page has been reorganized. The Home page has been updated to reflect these changes.
2007/05/31	All the Netkit labs that have been published up to now have undergone thorough testing and revision. This process has now been completed and a new version is available for each of the labs on the (recently renamed) Labs & Slides page. Improvements include error fixes, new proposed experiments, the availability of information to perform regression tests, and a slightly redesigned layout for the slides. Also, the Netkit tutorial has been moved to the Papers & Talks page.
2007/04/03	An alpha version of the new Netkit filesystem has been released. It contains upgrades to some existing packages as well as new software, mostly related to network security. For more information, see the Changelog. The filesystem is available at the Downloads page.
2007/01/26	A Technical Report describing the architecture and usage of Netkit has been published. You can find it in the new Publications section.
2006/10/16	WinNetkit version 1.0b has been released. WinNetkit is a pre-packaged VMWare virtual machine containing a ready-to-use Netkit distribution. This allows Windows users to take advantage of the Netkit network emulation capabilities. You can find it in the Downloads area. Also, downloads have been reorganized to accommodate contributions by Netkit users.
2006/04/05	The revision of the application level labs has been completed. New versions of the labs and of the slides are now available for download from the Labs and Lecture Slides section. Also, introduction, basic topics, and application level labs can now be downloaded as single tarballs.
2006/03/13	A minor update of the lecture slides for the Introduction and Basic Topics sections.
2006/03/03	A tutorial about Netkit has been held during the IPS MoMe 2006 workshop in Salzburg. The tutorial presentation can be downloaded from the Labs and Lecture Slides section.
2006/02/10	Lecture slides and labs for the basic topics have been completely revised and tested with Netkit version 2. You can find the new versions on the Labs and Lecture Slides page.
2006/01/09	Our wishes for a happy new year come out together with a brand new Netkit release. The update involves both the Netkit core and the filesystem. Have a look at the changelog to whet your appetite.
2005/11/01	The mailing list migration has been completed. Please take note of the new address from the Credits and Contacts section. The old mailing list will be discarded within a few days. A new page manifesting the compatibility status of Netkit with different Linux distributions has been put in place.
2005/10/26	The mailing list is about to be migrated to a new server. No action is required on the part of the current subscribers. We will do our best to provide an uninterrupted service, but apologize in advance for any inefficiency.
2005/10/03	Interdomain Routing labs have been completely revised. They are now distributed in the form of 'l'-labs (i.e., labs that can be handled by using Netkit 'l'-prefixed commands). This has also been made possible thanks to the contributions of all those people who have been signaling us inconsistencies along time. Some of the labs are also supported by a description in NetML. Lecture slides have been revised as well.
2005/09/16	A new Netkit release is out. The "Beta" mark has been removed, because a good degree of stability has been reached. This is a major update, involving all the Netkit components. As usual, consult the Download page in order to get more information.
2005/08/01	Some other bugs have been fixed in Netkit 2.2 beta version. Details and download links are available at the Download page.
2005/07/29	Netkit 2.1 beta version and Netkit kernel 2.1 beta version have been released (for information about the fixed bugs, see the changelogs). The Netkit web page has been revised.
2005/07/26	Netkit 2.0 beta version has been released. Also, the Netkit web page has been revised.