Point-to-Point¶

Point to Point links allow for arbitrary connections between lab nodes. This enables to simulation of small to large network topologies resembling real-life implementations.

Links between nodes are defined in the manifest.toml file in the links section.

There are multiple methods to link nodes together. The method used depends on the lab requirements.

P2P Bridge¶

P2P Bridges are the default P2P link type. They allow for connectivity between VM's and Containers and also allow for packet captures on the interfaces via Wireshark or TCPDump.

Node interfaces in a link are assigned to a dedicated linux bridge. The bridges are connected via a veth pair virtual wire.

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Configuration¶

PTP Bridge is the default configuration and does not required any mode setting to be defined.

nodes = [
    { name = "dev01", model = "arista_veos" },
    { name = "dev02", model = "arista_ceos" },
]
links = [
    { src = "dev01::eth1", dst = "dev02::eth1" },
]

Note

p2p-bridge is the only supported link type between containers and virtual machines.

P2P UDP¶

Note

This is a planned feature.

P2P UDP allow for the transmission of any protocol between Virtual Machine nodes only. A point-to-point virtual wire is created directly between the network interfaces using UDP tunneling.

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Caveats¶

PTP UDP link interfaces CANNOT be used as for packet captures.

Configuration¶

PTP UDP is configured on a per-link basis with the mode = "p2p-udp" setting.

nodes = [
    { name = "dev03", model = "arista_veos" },
    { name = "dev04", model = "arista_veos" },
]
links = [
    { src = "dev03::eth1", dst = "dev04::eth1", mode = "p2p-udp" },
]

Note

p2p-udp is only supported between virtual machines nodes.

P2P vEth¶

Note

This is a planned feature.

P2P vEth allow for the transmission of any protocol between container nodes. A point-to-point virtual wire is created directly between the network interfaces with a vEth pair.

P2P vEth interfaces CAN be used for packet captures.

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Caveats¶

PTP vEth links are created outside the docker process and are not automatically re-attached to a container if the container crashes.

Configuration¶

PTP vEth is configured on a per-link basis with the mode = "p2p-veth" setting.

nodes = [
    { name = "dev05", model = "arista_ceos" },
    { name = "dev06", model = "arista_ceos" },
]
links = [
    { src = "dev05::eth1", dst = "dev06::eth1", mode = "p2p-veth" },
]

Note

p2p-veth is only supported between container nodes.