Revision as of 03:58, 30 March 2010

On this page, we will try to maintain pointers to current ns-3 development work, and post some suggested project ideas. If you are interested in collaborating on one of these projects, please do not hesitate to contact the individuals identified.

Much of the current activity is centered around the current release, which is now ns-3.8 due in April. The release page should list code that is under active review for merging.

ns-3.8 release page

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: Several ns-3 developers hang out on IRC at #ns-3 at irc.freenode.net. A typically active time is around 1500 to 1900 UTC, Mondays through Fridays.

We conduct many of our reviews at http://codereview.appspot.com. The Reviews page links to some of this code that is currently under review (also summarized below).

Ongoing development projects

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-3.10 merge?

Synchronized emulation

• code location: None posted yet
• background: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2009-July/006198.html
• status: contact Elias Weingartner

Device and channel models

Spectrum modeling support

• ns-developers post: original post review request
• code location: corereview mercurial
• status: review requested, merge candidate for ns-3.9

underwater acoustic network device

• code location: http://codereview.appspot.com/87043
• reviewer(s): Craig Dowell, Faker Moatamri, Andrey Mazo
• status: plan to merge in ns-3.8 release cycle

WIFI_PHY_STANDARD_80211p_SCH/CCH

• code location: http://codereview.appspot.com/152058/show
• reviewer(s): Ramon Bauza, Mathieu Lacage
• status: merged to ns-3.7

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET)

• code location: http://codereview.appspot.com/179068
• reviewer(s): Mathieu Lacage
• status: waiting for more reviews

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:

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
• status: Frame aggregation and block ack merged already; others TBD

Link layer

MPLS

• code location: http://code.google.com/p/ns3-mpls/
• reviewer(s): None
• status: None announced

802.21 media independent handover

• wiki page: http://www.nsnam.org/wiki/index.php/NS-3_MIH_implementation
• code location: http://code.nsnam.org/salumu/ns-3-mih/
• status: Dormant-- no merge plans announced.

Network layer

IPv6 for ns-3

• summary: Ipv6 support for ns-3
• ns-developers post: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2008-June/004283.html
• code location: hg clone https://svnet.u-strasbg.fr/hg/ns-3-ipv6-2nd/
• status: ns-3.3 contains the first merge (Ipv6Address) of this code. ns-3.7 and ns-3.8 will continue to add features. Here is a tentative roadmap: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2009-July/006211.html

Application layer

Chord/DHash DHT

• code location: http://code.nsnam.org/gillh/ns-3-chord
• reviewers: (none yet)
• background: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2009-December/007222.html

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: http://www.nsnam.org/wiki/index.php/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

Visualization for ns-3

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

Gustavo Carneiro is working on a NS-3 Python visualization tool called NS-3 PyViz.

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/

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: http://www.nsnam.org/wiki/index.php/Parallel_Simulations
• code location: http://code.nsnam.org/pfeifer/ns-3-para/
• status: dormant since 2008 Google Summer of Code

Miscellaneous

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

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.

Suggested projects

2010 Google Summer of Code Project Ideas

We have posted some project ideas for Google Summer of Code. However, these ideas are not limited to the Google program.

Project ideas here

Path MTU discovery and fragmentation for IPv4 stacks

There is no path MTU discovery implemented for IPv4. This, combined with lack of fragmentation, makes guessing the end-to-end MTU imperative for ns-3 simulations. We would welcome a contribution that introduced path MTU discovery and IPv4 fragmentation to ns-3. Note that there is fragmentation support in the yans simulator that may be of use; contact Mathieu Lacage for more information.

Removing traffic generation from applications class

1. • summary: Proposed decoupling to generalize applications
   • ns-developers post: http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2007-July/003136.html
   • code location: http://code.nsnam.org/laprisee/ns-3-mp/
   • status: Was under discussion in the summer.