.. include:: replace.txt

Getting Started

---------------

Downloading ns-3

****************

The |ns3| system as a whole is a fairly complex system and has a

number of dependencies on other components.  Along with the systems you will

most likely deal with every day (the GNU toolchain, Mercurial, you programmer

editor) you will need to ensure that a number of additional libraries are

present on your system before proceeding.  |ns3| provides a wiki

for your reading pleasure that includes pages with many useful hints and tips.

One such page is the "Installation" page,

http://www.nsnam.org/wiki/index.php/Installation.

The "Prerequisites" section of this wiki page explains which packages are 

required to support common |ns3| options, and also provides the 

commands used to install them for common Linux variants.  Cygwin users will

have to use the Cygwin installer (if you are a Cygwin user, you used it to

install Cygwin). 

You may want to take this opportunity to explore the |ns3| wiki 

a bit since there really is a wealth of information there. 

From this point forward, we are going to assume that the reader is working in

Linux or a Linux emulation environment (Linux, Cygwin, etc.) and has the GNU

toolchain installed and verified along with the prerequisites mentioned 

above.  We are also going to assume that you have Mercurial and Waf installed

and running on the target system as described in the "Getting Started" section 

of the  |ns3| web site: 

http://www.nsnam.org/getting_started.html.

The |ns3| code is available in Mercurial repositories on the server

http://code.nsnam.org.  You can also download a tarball release at

http://www.nsnam.org/releases/, or you can work with repositories

using Mercurial.  We recommend using Mercurial unless there's a good reason

not to.  See the end of this section for instructions on how to get a tarball

release.

The simplest way to get started using Mercurial repositories is to use the

``ns-3-allinone`` environment.  This is a set of scripts that manages the 

downloading and building of various subsystems of |ns3| for you.  We 

recommend that you begin your |ns3| adventures in this environment

as it can really simplify your life at this point.

Downloading ns-3 Using Mercurial

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

One practice is to create a directory called ``repos`` in one's home 

directory under which one can keep local Mercurial repositories.  

*Hint:  we will assume you do this later in the tutorial.*  If you adopt

that approach, you can get a copy of ``ns-3-allinone`` by typing the 

following into your Linux shell (assuming you have installed Mercurial):

::

  cd

  mkdir repos

  cd repos

  hg clone http://code.nsnam.org/ns-3-allinone

As the hg (Mercurial) command executes, you should see something like the 

following displayed,

::

  destination directory: ns-3-allinone

  requesting all changes

  adding changesets

  adding manifests

  adding file changes

  added 31 changesets with 45 changes to 7 files

  7 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved

After the clone command completes, you should have a directory called 

``ns-3-allinone`` under your ``~/repos`` directory, the contents of which should 

look something like the following:

::

  build.py*  constants.py  dist.py*  download.py*  README  util.py

Notice that you really just downloaded some Python scripts.  The next step

will be to use those scripts to download and build the |ns3|

distribution of your choice.

If you go to the following link: http://code.nsnam.org/,

you will see a number of repositories.  Many are the private repositories of

the |ns3| development team.  The repositories of interest to you will

be prefixed with "ns-3".  Official releases of |ns3| will be 

numbered as ``ns-3.<release>.<hotfix>``.  For example, a second hotfix to a

The current development snapshot (unreleased) of |ns3| may be found 

at http://code.nsnam.org/ns-3-dev/.  The 

developers attempt to keep these repository in consistent, working states but

they are in a development area with unreleased code present, so you may want 

to consider staying with an official release if you do not need newly-

introduced features.

Since the release numbers are going to be changing, I will stick with 

the more constant ns-3-dev here in the tutorial, but you can replace the 

string "ns-3-dev" with your choice of release (e.g., ns-3.10) in the 

text below.  You can find the latest version  of the

code either by inspection of the repository list or by going to the 

`"Getting Started"

<http://www.nsnam.org/getting_started.html>`_

web page and looking for the latest release identifier.

Go ahead and change into the ``ns-3-allinone`` directory you created when

you cloned that repository.  We are now going to use the ``download.py`` 

script to pull down the various pieces of |ns3| you will be using.

Go ahead and type the following into your shell (remember you can substitute

the name of your chosen release number instead of ``ns-3-dev`` -- like

``"ns-3.10"`` if you want to work with a 

stable release).

::

  ./download.py -n ns-3-dev

Note that the default for the ``-n`` option is ``ns-3-dev`` and so the

above is actually redundant.  We provide this example to illustrate how to

specify alternate repositories.  In order to download ``ns-3-dev`` you 

can actually use the defaults and simply type,

::

  ./download.py

As the hg (Mercurial) command executes, you should see something like the 

following,

::

      #

      # Get NS-3

      #

  Cloning ns-3 branch

   =>  hg clone http://code.nsnam.org/ns-3-dev ns-3-dev

  requesting all changes

  adding changesets

  adding manifests

  adding file changes

  added 4634 changesets with 16500 changes to 1762 files

  870 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved

This is output by the download script as it fetches the actual ``ns-3``

code from the repository.

The download script is smart enough to know that on some platforms various

pieces of ns-3 are not supported.  On your platform you may not see some

of these pieces come down.  However, on most platforms, the process should

continue with something like,

::

      #

      # Get PyBindGen

      #

  Required pybindgen version:  0.10.0.640

  Trying to fetch pybindgen; this will fail if no network connection is available.  Hit Ctrl-C to skip.

   =>  bzr checkout -rrevno:640 https://launchpad.net/pybindgen pybindgen

  Fetch was successful.

This was the download script getting the Python bindings generator for you.

Note that you will need bazaar (bzr), a version control system, to download 

PyBindGen. Next you should see (modulo platform variations) something along 

the lines of,

::

      #

      # Get NSC

      #

  Required NSC version:  nsc-0.5.0

  Retrieving nsc from https://secure.wand.net.nz/mercurial/nsc

   =>  hg clone https://secure.wand.net.nz/mercurial/nsc nsc

  requesting all changes

  adding changesets

  adding manifests

  adding file changes

  added 273 changesets with 17565 changes to 15175 files

  10622 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved

This part of the process is the script downloading the Network Simulation

Cradle for you. Note that NSC is not supported on OSX or Cygwin and works 

best with gcc-3.4 or gcc-4.2 or greater series.

After the download.py script completes, you should have several new directories

under ``~/repos/ns-3-allinone``:

::

  build.py*     constants.pyc  download.py*  nsc/        README      util.pyc

  constants.py  dist.py*       ns-3-dev/     pybindgen/  util.py

Go ahead and change into ``ns-3-dev`` under your ``~/repos/ns-3-allinone`` 

directory.  You should see something like the following there:

::

You are now ready to build the |ns3| distribution.

Downloading ns-3 Using a Tarball

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The process for downloading |ns3| via tarball is simpler than the

Mercurial process since all of the pieces are pre-packaged for you.  You just

have to pick a release, download it and decompress it.

As mentioned above, one practice is to create a directory called ``repos``

in one's home directory under which one can keep local Mercurial repositories.

One could also keep a ``tarballs`` directory.  *Hint:  the tutorial

will assume you downloaded into a ``repos`` directory, so remember the

placekeeper.``*  If you adopt the ``tarballs`` directory approach, you can 

get a copy of a release by typing the following into your Linux shell 

(substitute the appropriate version numbers, of course):

::

  cd

  mkdir tarballs

  cd tarballs

  wget http://www.nsnam.org/releases/ns-allinone-3.10.tar.bz2

  tar xjf ns-allinone-3.10.tar.bz2

If you change into the directory ``ns-allinone-3.10`` you should see a

number of files:

::

  build.py      ns-3.10/      pybindgen-0.15.0/    util.py

  constants.py  nsc-0.5.2/    README  

You are now ready to build the |ns3| distribution.

Building ns-3

*************

Building with build.py

++++++++++++++++++++++

The first time you build the |ns3| project you should build using the

``allinone`` environment.  This will get the project configured for you

in the most commonly useful way.

Change into the directory you created in the download section above.  If you

downloaded using Mercurial you should have a directory called 

``ns-3-allinone`` under your ``~/repos`` directory.  If you downloaded

using a tarball you should have a directory called something like 

``ns-allinone-3.10`` under your ``~/tarballs`` directory.  Take a deep

breath and type the following:

::

  ./build.py --enable-examples --enable-tests

Because we are working with examples and tests in this tutorial, and

because they are not built by default in |ns3|, the arguments for

build.py tells it to build them for us.  In the future you can build

|ns3| without examples and tests if you wish.

You will see lots of typical compiler output messages displayed as the build

script builds the various pieces you downloaded.  Eventually you should see the

following magic words:

::

  Waf: Leaving directory `/home/craigdo/repos/ns-3-allinone/ns-3-dev/build'

  'build' finished successfully (2m30.586s)

  Modules built: 

Once the project has built you can say goodbye to your old friends, the 

``ns-3-allinone`` scripts.  You got what you needed from them and will now 

interact directly with Waf and we do it in the ``ns-3-dev`` directory,

not in the ``ns-3-allinone`` directory.  Go ahead and change into the 

``ns-3-dev`` directory (or the directory for the appropriate release you

downloaded.

::

  cd ns-3-dev

Building with Waf

+++++++++++++++++

We use Waf to configure and build the |ns3| project.  It's not 

strictly required at this point, but it will be valuable to take a slight

detour and look at how to make changes to the configuration of the project.

Probably the most useful configuration change you can make will be to 

build the optimized version of the code.  By default you have configured

your project to build the debug version.  Let's tell the project to 

make an optimized build.  To explain to Waf that it should do optimized

builds that include the examples and tests, you will need to execute the 

following command,

::

  ./waf -d optimized --enable-examples --enable-tests configure

This runs Waf out of the local directory (which is provided as a convenience

for you).  As the build system checks for various dependencies you should see

output that looks similar to the following,

::

  Checking for program g++                 : ok /usr/bin/g++

  Checking for program cpp                 : ok /usr/bin/cpp

  Checking for program ar                  : ok /usr/bin/ar

  Checking for program ranlib              : ok /usr/bin/ranlib

  Checking for g++                         : ok

  Checking for program pkg-config          : ok /usr/bin/pkg-config

  Checking for -Wno-error=deprecated-declarations support : yes

  Checking for -Wl,--soname=foo support                   : yes

  Checking for header stdlib.h                            : ok

  Checking for header signal.h                            : ok

  Checking for header pthread.h                           : ok

  Checking for high precision time implementation         : 128-bit integer

  Checking for header stdint.h                            : ok

  Checking for header inttypes.h                          : ok

  Checking for header sys/inttypes.h                      : not found

  Checking for library rt                                 : ok

  Checking for header netpacket/packet.h                  : ok

  Checking for pkg-config flags for GSL                   : ok

  Checking for header linux/if_tun.h                      : ok

  Checking for pkg-config flags for GTK_CONFIG_STORE      : ok

  Checking for pkg-config flags for LIBXML2               : ok

  Checking for library sqlite3                            : ok

  Checking for NSC location                               : ok ../nsc (guessed)

  Checking for library dl                                 : ok

  Checking for NSC supported architecture x86_64          : ok

  Checking for program python                             : ok /usr/bin/python

  Checking for Python version >= 2.3                      : ok 2.5.2

  Checking for library python2.5                          : ok

  Checking for program python2.5-config                   : ok /usr/bin/python2.5-config

  Checking for header Python.h                            : ok

  Checking for -fvisibility=hidden support                : yes

  Checking for pybindgen location                         : ok ../pybindgen (guessed)

  Checking for Python module pybindgen                    : ok

  Checking for pybindgen version                          : ok 0.10.0.640

  Checking for Python module pygccxml                     : ok

  Checking for pygccxml version                           : ok 0.9.5

  Checking for program gccxml                             : ok /usr/local/bin/gccxml

  Checking for gccxml version                             : ok 0.9.0

  Checking for program sudo                               : ok /usr/bin/sudo

  Checking for program hg                                 : ok /usr/bin/hg

  Checking for program valgrind                           : ok /usr/bin/valgrind

  ---- Summary of optional NS-3 features:

  Threading Primitives          : enabled

  Real Time Simulator           : enabled

  Emulated Net Device           : enabled

  GNU Scientific Library (GSL)  : enabled

  Tap Bridge                    : enabled

  GtkConfigStore                : enabled

  XmlIo                         : enabled

  SQlite stats data output      : enabled

  Network Simulation Cradle     : enabled

  Python Bindings               : enabled

  Python API Scanning Support   : enabled

  Use sudo to set suid bit      : not enabled (option --enable-sudo not selected)

  Build tests                   : enabled

  Build examples                : enabled

  Static build                  : not enabled (option --enable-static not selected)

  'configure' finished successfully (2.870s)

Note the last part of the above output.  Some ns-3 options are not enabled by

default or require support from the underlying system to work properly.

For instance, to enable XmlTo, the library libxml-2.0 must be found on the

system.  If this library were not found, the corresponding |ns3| feature 

would not be enabled and a message would be displayed.  Note further that there is 

a feature to use the program ``sudo`` to set the suid bit of certain programs.

This is not enabled by default and so this feature is reported as "not enabled."

Now go ahead and switch back to the debug build that includes the examples and tests.

::

  ./waf -d debug --enable-examples --enable-tests configure

The build system is now configured and you can build the debug versions of 

the |ns3| programs by simply typing,

::

  ./waf

Some waf commands are meaningful during the build phase and some commands are valid

in the configuration phase.  For example, if you wanted to use the emulation 

features of |ns3|, you might want to enable setting the suid bit using

sudo as described above.  This turns out to be a configuration-time command, and so 

you could reconfigure using the following command that also includes the examples and tests

::

  ./waf -d debug --enable-sudo --enable-examples --enable-tests configure

If you do this, waf will have run sudo to change the socket creator programs of the

emulation code to run as root.  There are many other configure- and build-time options

available in waf.  To explore these options, type:

::

  ./waf --help

We'll use some of the testing-related commands in the next section.

Okay, sorry, I made you build the |ns3| part of the system twice,

but now you know how to change the configuration and build optimized code.

Testing ns-3

************

You can run the unit tests of the |ns3| distribution by running the 

"./test.py -c core" script,

::

  ./test.py -c core

These tests are run in parallel by waf. You should eventually

see a report saying that,

::

  47 of 47 tests passed (47 passed, 0 failed, 0 crashed, 0 valgrind errors)

This is the important message.

You will also see output from the test runner and the output will actually look something like,

::

  Waf: Entering directory `/home/craigdo/repos/ns-3-allinone/ns-3-dev/build'

  Waf: Leaving directory `/home/craigdo/repos/ns-3-allinone/ns-3-dev/build'

  'build' finished successfully (1.799s)

  Modules built: 

  PASS: TestSuite ns3-wifi-interference

  PASS: TestSuite histogram

  PASS: TestSuite sample

  PASS: TestSuite ipv4-address-helper

  PASS: TestSuite devices-wifi

  PASS: TestSuite propagation-loss-model

  ...

  PASS: TestSuite attributes

  PASS: TestSuite config

  PASS: TestSuite global-value

  PASS: TestSuite command-line

  PASS: TestSuite basic-random-number

  PASS: TestSuite object

  PASS: TestSuite random-number-generators

This command is typically run by ``users`` to quickly verify that an 

|ns3| distribution has built correctly.  

Running a Script

****************

We typically run scripts under the control of Waf.  This allows the build 

system to ensure that the shared library paths are set correctly and that

the libraries are available at run time.  To run a program, simply use the

``--run`` option in Waf.  Let's run the |ns3| equivalent of the

ubiquitous hello world program by typing the following:

::

  ./waf --run hello-simulator

Waf first checks to make sure that the program is built correctly and 

executes a build if required.  Waf then executes the program, which 

produces the following output.

::

  Hello Simulator

*Congratulations.  You are now an ns-3 user.*

*What do I do if I don't see the output?*

If you don't see ``waf`` messages indicating that the build was 

completed successfully, but do not see the "Hello Simulator" output, 

chances are that you have switched your build mode to "optimized" in