Visual Network Simulator To Teach Basic Networking? 138
unteer writes "I am a US Peace Corps volunteer currently teaching a computer technician course at a technical college in Kenya. My students have all completed the Kenyan equivalent of high school and have been accepted into a program where they give a year of nation-building non-military service in return for a technical education. My students' course load includes an introduction to computer networking, and this is where my problem lies. Do any of you know of a visual network simulator that can create an interactive network map that allows me, the instructor, to manipulate various components of a network, including the physical media, routing configuration, and which applications are being used to submit data? An example would be to have a visual of the differences between mail traffic and web traffic, and be able to show how the configuration of a wireless network might be different from a wired network. I know this may seem silly, but visuals of all this are critical to getting ideas across. It doesn't even have to be technically accurate, but rather just pictorially accurate, possibly just labeling the various components correctly. Also, it would be highly preferable if it ran on Linux, as I teach using FOSS only."
Cisco Packet Tracer (Score:5, Informative)
Boson? (Score:5, Informative)
Visual Netkit (Score:5, Informative)
The Visual Netkit project may interest you.
http://code.google.com/p/visual-netkit/
OMNeT++ is available for free for academic use. (Score:5, Informative)
try GNS3 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cisco Packet Tracer (Score:1, Informative)
I believe that you have to be a member of Cisco Academy to use Packet Tracer - typical Cisco licensing agreement.
Re:Cisco Packet Tracer (Score:5, Informative)
If you want you can see frames and acks between this and that node as they travel across the various links needed to reach the final point, a thorough way to visualize what's going on, but not the fastest way to teach someone how to use ifconfig or configure a cisco router.
GINI (Score:5, Informative)
GINI (GINI is not Internet) http://cgi.cs.mcgill.ca/~anrl/projects/gini/ [mcgill.ca] is a toolkit for creating virtual micro Internets for teaching and learning computer networks. It will run on both Linux and Windows.
ns2 / nam (Score:5, Informative)
CORE (Score:4, Informative)
Take a look at CORE (http://cs.itd.nrl.navy.mil/work/core/) its open source and works on Linux/BSD
youtube vids (Score:2, Informative)
Youtube has some useful videos to simulate networking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbY8Hb6abbg&feature=related
Re:Application (Score:2, Informative)
some programs (Score:3, Informative)
* ns2: http://nsnam.isi.edu/nsnam/index.php/Main_Page [isi.edu] (GPL)
* Wide Area Network Emulator http://wanem.sf.net/ [sf.net]|WANem (GPL)
Imunes (Score:2, Informative)
GNS3 / Dynamips (Score:5, Informative)
All you need beyond the initial download is a router image file (Cisco 7200, etc).
Enjoy!
cloonix FTW (Score:1, Informative)
What about cloonix?
Take a quick look at the screenshots: http://clownix.net/
Clack Graphical Router (Score:5, Informative)
I had a similar problem finding ways to teach basic networking such as addresses and masks and routing to non-computing students. Having looked into NS2 and similar things and finding them powerful but way too complicated (for the student's level), I settled on Clack:
Clack Graphical Router Project [stanford.edu]
It's written in Java, graphical and easy to use and does quite well at showing many of the important things. You can also extend it yourself if necessary (open source).
Re:You have a problem (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think he said "I refuse to use non-Foss tools", I think it's more "I currently only use FOSS tools". This, because he said it should run on Linux preferably, which means he's willing to use Windows if the tool needs it.
Clownix ? (Score:1, Informative)
Why not http://clownix.net/ ? you can build a full network graphicaly and log on each machine to configure them
Re:You have a problem (Score:4, Informative)
He mentioned "preferable", perhaps because Free solutions can be expanded Freely. His students can have personal copies of ALL the software he uses and spread it legally as they teach others.
Re:ns2 / nam (Score:1, Informative)
NS2 is what we use at the University of Leuven (Belgium). It can be scripted, so it is very good for simulations of "Suppose a storm blows out cables 1, 4, and 6. What happens?". It can simulate UDP and TCP traffic, it can simulate RIP and BGP routing protocols as well.
Visualis ( commercial software from BMC ) (Score:2, Informative)
Clack Graphical Router (Score:3, Informative)
We used a Stanford project called Clack in my Networking and Internet Protocols class. We could setup virtual networks and visualize traffic. The meat was implementing a virtual router in software and using that to route traffic in the virtual network.
Clack Homepage:
http://yuba.stanford.edu/vns/clack/ [stanford.edu]
Part of the Virtual Network System
http://yuba.stanford.edu/vns/ [stanford.edu]
Re:Artwork of all networking equipment (Score:4, Informative)
Whoops the link was bad try this http://graffletopia.com/ [graffletopia.com]
Re:Boson? (Score:1, Informative)
Boson NetSim Simulation software was designed specifically for that purpose. I used it couple years ago and i do highly recommend it. It also has a lot of other networking aid features.
the url http://www.boson.com/default.html