Current Development

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On this page, we will try to summarize current ns-3 development work. If you are interested in collaborating on one of these projects, please do not hesitate to contact the individuals identified.

There are a few other places to look for current activity on ns-3 development:

• the current release page will list code under consideration for merging, and bugs being worked. The next release, ns-3.17 release, is scheduled for April 2013.
• we should have entries for all of our known bugs in the Bugzilla bug tracker.
• [Related_Projects | Related projects] list some active and past projects that are associated with ns-3.
• We maintain a suggested project ideas page for people interested in trying to start something new, or finish off some existing work.
• We conduct code review discussions on the Google Group 'ns-3-reviews'

If you are new to ns-3 and want to contribute, please read these guidelines: Contributing to ns-3 and review the information on this page below.

Note: ns-3 developers sometimes hang out on IRC at #ns-3 at irc.freenode.net. However, attendance has been spotty lately.

Development for main trunk of ns-3

Some of these projects are active, some dormant, but all seem oriented towards merging with the main trunk of ns-3 if they can be finished off.

ns-3 core

Multi-threaded simulation implementation for multicore

• ns-developers post: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2009-July/006197.html
• code location: http://code.nsnam.org/guillaume/ns-3-multithreading/
• status: ns-3.11 merge?

Linux namespaces and ns-3

• summary: Tom Goff has contributed code and documentation about how to use ns-3 with Linux namespaces.
• code location: See the below wiki page.
• background: HOWTO use Linux namespaces with ns-3
• status: A version of this was merged to the latest CORE network emulator release.

Device and channel models

Optical network: WDM, PON and RoF

See Optical network models.

Miscellaneous wifi enhancements

• code location: http://codereview.appspot.com/65051
• reviewer(s): Mathieu Lacage
• status: Some of these pieces made it into ns-3.5-- others are pending
• background: http://groups.google.com/group/ns-3-reviews/browse_thread/thread/f0b36d7373421a7d#

Patch to pause and resume an interface

• code location: http://codereview.appspot.com/62054
• reviewer(s): TBD
• status: reimplemented in a more general way, see Object Start Stop Specification

802.11 model extensions

There are several efforts ongoing to extend the ns-3 Wifi model.

Harmonization with ns-2 802.11 Ext models

• summary: ns-2.33 added a new 802.11 model with much more detailed channel modeling. An effort has been started to port over reusable components from that implementation to ns-3's wifi model, while reusing already implemented basic components. The goal is a harmonization of the 802.11 models of ns-2 and ns-3. Leading aim is to support research on vehicular networks. Planned near-term features:
  • Equalizing PHY models including capture effects, user-definable coding rates (e.g. 5.9 GHz from 802.11p)
  • EDCA QoS extensions of 802.11e
• Already finished features:
  • Nakagami/Rayleigh propagation loss model
• ns-developers post: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2008-November/004936.html
• code location: http://idlebox.net/2008/ns-3-wifi/code/ns-3-wifiex/
• status: under current active development. Time frame till this is completed: 4-5 month.

802.11n

• summary: University of Florence (LART lab) has begun work on an 802.11n model for ns3. The main goal is to simulate the frame aggregation feature. In the future, they aim to implement the High Throughput terminal behaviour with MIMO technology. They plan to add, to ns-3's 802.11 model, the following 802.11n features:
  • Frame Aggregation
  • Block ACK
  • HCF (EDCA and support for HCCA)
  • TXOP
  • HT terminal (also with protection modes)
  • MIMO

Also interested to verify the 11n terminal throughput when are associated terminal of a/b/g standards.

• Already finished features (in ns-3.5):
  • HCF, TXOP, Frame Aggregation
• Merged for ns-3.8:
  • Block ACK
• code location: http://code.nsnam.org/mirko/ns-3-80211n Repository has been removed.
• status: Frame aggregation and block ack merged already; Tommaso Pecorella announced his lab's next steps here. Current development is on hold.

Wireless Interference (Jamming) Model

• summary: Network Security Lab (NSL), University of Washington, Seattle has begun work on a wireless interference (jamming) model for ns3. The goal is to to enable researchers to use ns3 to study jamming and its mitigation methods.
• wiki page: NS-3 wireless jamming model
• code location: http://codereview.appspot.com/1055041/show
• status: Public review.

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET)

• summary: Michele Weigle's group is working on VANET and has posted a patch for review in the past, but has taken it off the table for ns-3 merge consideration until more work is done.
• code location: None publicly posted at this time.

ns-3, 802.15.4 + 6LoWPAN

Tommaso Pecorella announced his plans here

Current status is:

• RPL implementation (storing, multicast): almost finished, will be posted for public discussion soon.
  • RPL is based on draft-ietf-roll-rpl-19
  • metrics implemented are of0 and minrank-hysteresis-of
• 6LoWPAN implementation: a development repository is here
• 802.15.4 will rely on the lr-wpan module (currently being implemented by Boeing).

Boeing is working on lr-wpan (IEEE 802.15.4-2006) support; details here.

LTE

In addition to the LENA project above, several developers expressed their interest in enhancing the LTE code initially developed within the GSoC 2010:

• Leo Razoumov announced possible interest in the following contributions:
  • MIMO
  • PHY model abstractions
  • scheduling models
  • mobility and traffic models
• Giuseppe Piro and his group (DEE, Politecnico di Bari) announced the intent to continue with the development of the LTE module, focusing mainly on the following MAC layer aspects:
  • RRM
  • scheduling
  • AMC
• Marco Mezzavilla and his group (DEI, University of Padova) announced interest in working on the following, and have posted a repository in February 2011 details here:
  • MAC layer
  • mobility
  • traffic modelization
  • MIMO
• Sandra Frei announced that a group is working on Evolved Packet System (EPS) support
  • GTPv1-U (for the user plane)
  • GTPv2-C (for the control plane)
  • Diameter: Supported use cases: default- and dedicated bearer establishment
  • NAS (ESM, EMM) A combined initial attach with a default bearer establishment. Dedicated bearer establishment
  • X2AP HO without SGW relocation. Endmarker messages are not supported
  • PMIPv6: PBU/PBA, LMA, MAG

Link layer

802.21 media independent handover

• wiki page: NS-3 MIH implementation
• code location: http://code.nsnam.org/salumu/ns-3-mih/
• status: Dormant-- no merge plans announced.

MPLS

• Submitted by: Andrey Churin
• code location: http://code.google.com/p/ns-3-shop/
• reviewer(s): None
• status: Project has moved to Google hosting.

Network layer

IPv6 for ns-3

IPv6 has been integrated into ns-3. Starting from ns-3.14 it will be possible to use TCP and UDP over IPv6. Any further development will be done directly on the main development tree.

Whoever is still using the old repositories previously linked in this section (i.e., https://svnet.u-strasbg.fr/hg/ns-3-ipv6-2nd/) should upgrade to the main ns-3 codebase as soon as possible.

API and functionality for marking TOS bytes in packets

• Submitted by: Antti Makela
• code location: http://www.nsnam.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=897
• reviewer(s): None
• status: Need to consider whether this fits into the Linux netfilter support that is planned

DSR routing

• Submitted by: Yufei Cheng
• status: Announced here: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2010-December/008496.html

DSDV routing

• Submitted by: Hemanth Narra
• code location: http://codereview.appspot.com/1668042/show
• status: Announced here: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2010-December/008496.html

Transport layer

TCP Vegas

• Submitted by: Juan Pablo Poujade
• code location: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2010-February/007419.html
• reviewers: none officially
• status: Waiting for guidance on how TCP congestion control variants will be implemented in general

Multipath TCP

NS-3 module for MPTCP (Multipath TCP). The current release is compatible with 3.8 version of NS-3. A check of the compatibility with the latest version is needed.

• Submitted by: Bachir CHIHANI
• code location: http://code.google.com/p/mptcp-ns3/

Codel, fq_codel in ns-3

• Submitted by: Andrew Mcgregor
• Code location: http://codereview.appspot.com/6463048
• Mailing list post: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2012-August/010572.html
• Reviewers: Tom Henderson and Mathieu Lacage

Application layer

Chord/DHash DHT

• Submitted by: Harjot Gill
• code location: http://codereview.appspot.com/180107/show
• reviewers: Mathieu Lacage, Tom Henderson
• background: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2009-December/007222.html
• status: Dormant for a while

Synchronous posix/sockets API

• summary: An ns-3 "process" environment
• ns-developers post: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2008-April/003912.html
• code location: http://code.nsnam.org/mathieu/ns-3-simu
• status: still in development

real-world application integration

• summary: port of quagga routing to ns-3
• wiki page: Real World Application Integration
• code location: http://code.nsnam.org/lj/quagga-porting/
• status: Was developed by Liu Jian, Google Summer of Code. Portions of this code are planned for a future release (ns-3.8 or later) when ns-3-simu is merged.

ns-3-simu sockopt patches

• code location: Four patches listed in http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2009-June/006144.html
• reviewer(s): TBD
• status: review requested on June 22
• background: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2009-June/006144.html

Pastry

• Summary: An implementation of Pastry within ns-3. Including some experimental key-based routing API.
• Developers: Robert Nitsch and Dominic Scheurer (Technische Universität Darmstadt).
• Code location: https://bitbucket.org/r_nitsch/ns-3-pastry/ (old repository: https://bitbucket.org/r_nitsch/libpastry/)
• Doxygen documentation: http://libpastry.robertnitsch.de
• Status:
  • 2012-01-22: Re-integrated the code into ns-3 source tree (ns-3.13).
  • Mostly finished.
  • Node arrival process needs some tweaking.
  • Review needed. (We're going to request one as soon as we're ready.)

Visualization

Jeremy Norman and the iNSpect team have posted some plans for a visualization library for ns-3:

• http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2008-March/003777.html
• http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2008-November/004914.html

George Riley has made a prototype animator for PointToPoint links.

Joe Kopena is working on what he calls a "decorator" http://code.nsnam.org/tjkopena/

Hagen Paul Pfeifer is working on a MANET visualizer http://nv.dev.jauu.net/

Graphical simulation builder

Pierre Weiss and Sebastien Vincent have written an ns-3 scenario generator in Qt.

• http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2010-May/007998.html
• Mercurial download: http://svnet.u-strasbg.fr/hg/ns-3-generator/

NetExplorer

| NetExplorer is Gnome/Gtk network animation tool for NS-3.

Miscellaneous

L2 Ethernet switch module

• ns-developers post: http://groups.google.com/group/ns-3-users/browse_thread/thread/0091ac611dde1928#
• status: No code yet, starting development.

Parallel simulations (2008)

• summary: ns-3 extensions for parallelization
• wiki page: Parallel Simulations
• code location: http://code.nsnam.org/pfeifer/ns-3-para/
• status: dormant since 2008 Google Summer of Code

Delay Box for ns-3

Matt Crinklaw is working on a port of ns-2 DelayBox to ns-3.

• summary: http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns/doc/node247.html (from ns-2 documentation)
• code location: http://freehg.org/u/mlaw
• status: No status update recently. Dormant.

Simulation Configuration and State Detection

In order to configure simulations across multiple, probably virtualized, machines a large amount of configuration must be performed in order to construct the component systems. The oppportunity for human error to creep in during this process renders it essentially manually unworkable for all but the simplest topologies. Craig Dowell is thinking about how to address this problem.

Simulation Configuration

Build system and project infrastructure

Modular build and package management

This issue is being tracked (requirements and wish list) on this page

State of Doxygen

Need to bring Doxygen into compliance (no errors, no warnings for missing documentation).

Buildbots

• investigate hooking code coverage (lcov) into the report
• investigate how the whole buildbot farm may be made available to a maintainer to test out a non-ns-3-dev repo.

Code contribution guidance

Tom took action item to simplify and clarify the project code contribution guidelines (for people wishing to contribute new code to ns-3).

Samples directory

Consider cleanup and move of samples/ directory to examples/?

Documentation

Considering to refactor documentation to split the existing manual into a model library and a software core reference manual, to add a lighter-weight tutorial, and to add a "cookbook" of howtos for common ns-3 tasks.

Website

Status: INRIA is organizing some updates to the website.