Network scenarios on the Mininet emulator

In our experiments (refer to our publications), we focus on network scenarios where a multi-homed client (AStream DASH player) is connected to two access networks, while at the other end, the video server (Caddy web server) is connected to a single access network. This setup results in an MPQUIC session with two paths between the DASH client and the video server.

Note: We implemented three network scenarios using the Mininet emulator (Python scripts are available on your host in ~/mpquic-sbd-vagrant/Workspace/mpquic-sbd/network/mininet/). In these scenarios, the paths between the client and server are configured as follows:

  • <1>: NSB (Non-Shared Bottlenecks): Each path traverses a distinct bottleneck link, meaning they do not share network resources.
  • <2>: SB (Shared Bottleneck): Both paths flow through the same bottleneck link, sharing the same network resource.
  • <3>: SHIFT (Shifting SB-NSB): The bottlenecks alternate between SB and NSB every 40 seconds during the MPQUIC session.

Run the Vagrant VM

On your host, navigate to the ~/mpquic-sbd-vagrant/VBox folder, reload the virtual machine, and connect to it.

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 cd ~/mpquic-sbd-vagrant/VBox
 vagrant reload
 vagrant ssh

Run the MPQUIC-SBD experiments

To run our experiments with MPQUIC-SBD on Mininet emulator:

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cd ~/Workspace/mpquic-sbd/
sudo python network/mininet/build_mininet_router<scenario>.py -nm 2 -p '<ABR>'

Where:

  • <scenario>: Specifies the number of the desired experiment. Enter 1 for NSB, 2 for SB, or 3 for SHIFT.
  • -nm: Indicates the number of network interface controllers for the client. Unless you have modified the network scenarios, always enter 2, as the client is dual-homed in our experiments.
  • -p: Specifies the ABR (Adaptive Bitrate) algorithm to use with the client DASH player (AStream). The available ABR algorithm implementations in AStream are: 'basic', a throughput-based algorithm (TBA); 'netflix', a buffer-based algorithm (BBA); and 'sara', a hybrid TBA/BBA algorithm.

For example, for you to run an experiment considering NSB scenario and the BBA ABR:

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cd ~/Workspace/mpquic-sbd/
sudo python network/mininet/build_mininet_router1.py -nm 2 -p 'netflix'
  • What happens: When running the build_mininet_router*.py scripts, you will first see command-line output from the mininet emulator as it creates the network topology. Then, the terminal prompt remains be blocked while mininet starts and runs the application processes (e.g., D-ITG background traffic, the caddy web server, and the AStream player). Once these processes are completed and the experiment is finished, the prompt (mininet> ) will return. At this point, you can exit mininet by typing exit.
  • Monitor the log output files: Since the ~/mpquic-sbd-vagrant/Workspace/ folder on your host is mapped to the /home/vagrant/Workspace folder in the Vagrant VM, you can monitor the experiment’s output files in real-time while the Vagrant terminal is blocked with mininet. To do this, open another terminal on your host and navigate to the folder containing the output logs: 
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    cd ~/mpquic-sbd-vagrant/Workspace/mpquic-sbd/log/
tail -f <log file>

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