wiki:GENIExperimenter/Tutorials/SystematicExprCaseStudy/InstallSoftware

Version 6 (modified by sedwards@bbn.com, 10 years ago) (diff)

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A Tutorial on Systematic Experimental Design

Image Map

Our goal is to setup a layer-3 virtual network with multiple virtual routers. Hence, the first step is to install the routing software. There are various options, such as `XORP` and `Quagga`. In this tutorial, we will install XORP to enable routing functionalities on nodes.

Sometimes it may take a long time to install software on a node, so it is always good to start with one node to test out the whole installation process. The figure below provides an overview of the software installation to a VM. This process turns a generic VM into a software router.

1. Reserve a VM with Standard Image

Assume we have a slice created already. We want to reserve a XenVM running a standard Ubuntu image as the basis of the software router.

a. Select a VM from InstaGENI

Launch Flack for your slice, and reserve a virtual machine from one of the InstaGENI aggregates (e.g., InstaGENI aggregate at Clemson).

Note Please go to HowToReserveVM for details on how to reserve a VM from an aggregate.

b. Select a Standard Image

Click to edit the property of the VM.

Set the Sliver Type to be emulab-xen and select the disk image that is to be loaded to the VM. In this tutorial, we select Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

Click to save the change.

c. Reserve the VM

Click to send the VM reservation request.

d. Login to the VM

Once the VM allocation is ready (i.e., the canvas turns into green in Flack), we are able to login to the node from a terminal using ssh.

ssh username@hostname -p xxxxx
Note You can find information on how to login to GENI hosts from HOWTOLOGIN.

2. Manual Installation

In this tutorial, we will install XORP 1.8.5 on Ubuntu 12.04, and the installation takes the following steps:

  • Install Dependencies
    $sudo apt-get update
    $sudo apt-get install libssl-dev
    $sudo apt-get install ncurses-dev
    $sudo apt-get install libpcap-dev
    $sudo apt-get install g++ traceroute
    $sudo apt-get install scons
    
  • Download XORP source files
    $cd ~/
    $wget http://www.xorp.org/releases/current/xorp-1.8.5-src.tar.bz2
    $tar jvxf xorp-1.8.5-src.tar.bz2
    
  • Compile and build XORP
    $cd xorp
    $scons
    $sudo scons install
    
  • Verify the XORP installation (Optional)
    $scons check
    

The whole installation process without the last optional step will take about 40 minutes to complete. Running scons check will probably take another hour to complete. If everything goes smoothly, you should be able to find the directory xorp under path /usr/local/.

Note If you try to install other version of XORP, please check the XORP Official Website for details on the dependencies and installation instructions.

3. Create Custom Image

From the manual installation procedure, we learned that it is not efficient to login to every VM and then install XORP. An alternative way is to create a custom image of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with XORP pre-installed, and save this custom image for future usage. We can create InstaGENI custom image via either Flack or Omni, details can be found at ManageCustomImageInstaGENI.

Here we use Flack to create InstaGENI custom image of Ubuntu 12.04 that has XORP pre-installed.

In Flack, for the same VM that we have just installed xorp, go to it's node property (i.e., clicking ), and click the button "Create Image".

In about 10 minutes, you will get an email that has image information similar to the following:

Image URN: urn:publicid:IDN+instageni.clemson.edu+image+ch-geni-net:LabwikiWithXORP
Image URL: https://www.instageni.clemson.edu/image_metadata.php?uuid=21a48773-f7cc-11e3-aa57-000000000000
Note The custom image with XORP preinstalled with URL below is ready for use, if you want to skip Step 2 (Manual Installation).
https://www.instageni.clemson.edu/image_metadata.php?uuid=21a48773-f7cc-11e3-aa57-000000000000

If your are going to use the same slice in the next step, now it's time to release the VM resource.

  • Use Omni
    $ omni.py -a <aggregate name> deletesliver <slicename>
    
  • Use Flack
    • Press the Delete button in the bottom of your canvas.
    • Select Delete at used manager and confirm your selection.

4. Verify InstaGENI Custom Image

Now let's load the custom image created in Step 3.

Create a new VM in Flack, and edit the node property. Instead of selecting an advertised image as we did in step 1.b, we will use the URL to the custom image we just created in step 3. Copy an paste the following URL to the URL field.

https://www.instageni.clemson.edu/image_metadata.php?uuid=21a48773-f7cc-11e3-aa57-000000000000

Apply the change, and submit the VM reservation request in Flack.

Once the VM is ready to login, we can verify the XORP installation.

xuanliu@xen:$ cd /usr/local/xorp/sbin
xuanliu@xen:/usr/local/xorp/sbin$ ls
bgp_xrl_shell_funcs.sh  fea_xrl_shell_funcs.sh  xorp_profiler  xorpsh
call_xrl                rib_xrl_shell_funcs.sh  xorp_rtrmgr

5. Cleanup the Slice

After verify the XORP installation, we can cleanup the slice for next step.

  • Use Omni
    $ omni.py -a <aggregate name> deletesliver <slicename>
    
  • Use Flack
    • Press the Delete button in the bottom of your canvas.
    • Select Delete at used manager and confirm your selection.

Overview

Step II: Small Topology

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