GENI in a Box

What is GENI-in-a-Box?

GENI-in-a-Box is intended to help you get started with GENI without having to apply and get approved for a GENI account. You can use GENI-in-a-Box to set up and run experiments just as you would with using resources from a real GENI aggregate. With GENI-in-a-Box all the resources you use exist within a ​VirtualBox virtual machine running on your computer.

The figure below is a schematic of the GENI-in-a-Box. The GENI-in-a-Box VirtualBox VM includes the ​Omni experiment control tool, a clearinghouse used to create slices and an aggregate manager that makes resources available for experimentation. The resources available from the GENI-in-a-Box aggregate manager are up to six virtual machines running Linux. Each of these virtual machines has three NICs. They can be connected to form any topology that does not require more than six nodes and more than three NICs on a node. GENI standard rspecs are used to specify the machines, links and topology required by the experiment.

You will have root access to the virtual machines used in your experiment. You can use ssh to connect to and log into these machines.

Where can I get GENI-in-a-Box?

GENI-in-a-Box can be downloaded from: . This is a fairly large download (~3.1GB) and so you will want a good broadband Internet connection when you download.

How do I get started with GENI-in-a-Box?

Instructions on getting started with GENI-in-a-Box are at: . Please make sure you have ​VirtualBox Version 4.1.16 or later installed on your computer before you follow the instructions on that page.

Can I move my experiments from GENI-in-a-Box to real resources in the GENI infrastructures?

GENI-in-a-Box resources share a number of similarities with resources from the ProtoGENI aggregate. It will therefore be easiest to move your experiment from GENI-in-a-Box to ProtoGENI. See this page for things to watch for when you move your experiment from GENI-in-a-Box to ProtoGENI.

What are the limitations of GENI-in-a-Box?

• network fidelity
• performance isolation
• size

Where can I learn more about the implementation of GENI-in-a-Box?

If you are a software developer interested in learning about how GENI-in-a-Box is implemented or interested in enhancing GENI-in-a-Box you'll want to check out ...

For more information on GENI-in-a-Box, email Vic Thomas