16.3 Using the PointToPointNetDevice

The PointToPoint net devices and channels are typically created and configured using the associated PointToPointHelper object. The various ns3 device helpers generally work in a similar way, and their use is seen in many of our example programs and is also covered in the ns-3 tutorial.

The conceptual model of interest is that of a bare computer “husk” into which you plug net devices. The bare computers are created using a NodeContainer helper. You just ask this helper to create as many computers (we call them Nodes) as you need on your network:

  NodeContainer nodes;
  nodes.Create (2);

Once you have your nodes, you need to instantiate a PointToPointHelper and set any attributes you may want to change. Note that since this is a point-to-point (as compared to a point-to-multipoint) there may only be two nodes with associated net devices connected by a PointToPointChannel.

  PointToPointHelper pointToPoint;
  pointToPoint.SetDeviceAttribute ("DataRate", StringValue ("5Mbps"));
  pointToPoint.SetChannelAttribute ("Delay", StringValue ("2ms"));

Once the attributes are set, all that remains is to create the devices and install them on the required nodes, and to connect the devices together using a PointToPoint channel. When we create the net devices, we add them to a container to allow you to use them in the future. This all takes just one line of code.

  NetDeviceContainer devices = pointToPoint.Install (nodes);

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