NetChannel Installation

NetChannel Overview

Cavisson’s NetChannel is an easy-to-use, powerful network simulation solution that creates a virtual wide area network (WAN) environment in the lab mimicking a production network environment. It provides a powerful, flexible and easy way to test the performance of the applications in a real-life network environment. This document provides guidelines for installing NetChannel on Linux operating system that includes:

  • Confirmation to all pre-installation requirements
  • Installation of Linux OS
  • Login into NetChannel Server
  • Steps for using NetChannel

Additionally, this document explains the process of upgrading NetChannel.

Pre-requisites

All the installation via either ‘Build’ or ‘CavBin’ should always be done on the work controller.

Software Requirements
  • Internet Explorer 7.0 (Java enabled) / Chrome / Firefox from where the user will login into the NetChannel Server.
  • Putty or similar software to ssh into NetChannel box.
Machine Requirements

Minimum three machines are required as Source, Destination, and NetChannel machine.

For Example:

  • Source Machine — 10.10.50.32
  • Destination Machine — 10.10.40.104
  • NetChannel Machine — 10.10.30.56
Interface Requirements

Minimum two interfaces are required on the NetChannel machine and one Interface each on Source and Destination machine.

Installation

The installation of NetChannel includes interface setup, backend setup, and UI setup. The user can also install this via CavBin.The details of each section is provided as below:

Installation via CavBin

The user can install NetChannel via CavBin. To download the CavBin file, click the below link: https://nde.cavisson.com/logs/HUB/Cav.4.2.0.103.Ubuntu1604_64.bin

Interface Setup

The setup of the interfaces for the machines would be like:

For Example:

  • On Source Machine
    • enp1s0 (10.50.32)
  • On Netchannel Machine
    • enp1s0 (10.50.98)
    • enp2s0 (10.40.103)
  • On Destination Machine
    • enp0s31f6(10.40.104)
  • Interface ‘enp1s0’ of Source machine would be connected to ‘enp1s0‘ of Netchannel
  • Interface ‘enp2s0’ of Netchannel machine would be connected to enp0s31f6 of Destination Machine.
Backend Setup
  1. Add route between two machines through the gateway.

For Example:

    • On Source machine:- route add 10.10.40.104 gw 10.50.98
    • On Destination machine:- route add 10.50.32 gw 10.10.40.103

Note: Perform above commands by using root users.

  1. To check whether route has been added successfully or not, run the command as “route -n” (without quotes). The result of above command is displayed as:

On Source Machine

On Destination Machine

On Gateway

Verification
  1. All the IPs present on each Interface should be able to ping to each other.
  2. While doing Traceroute from source to destination, it should be getting passed from the gateway and vice- versa.

Traceroute command from Source to Destination:

cavisson@ubuntu:~/work$ traceroute 10.10.40.104
traceroute to 10.10.40.104 (10.10.40.104), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1  10.10.50.98 (10.10.50.98)  0.091 ms  0.089 ms  0.083 ms
2  10.10.40.104 (10.10.40.104)  0.447 ms  0.446 ms  0.440 ms

Traceroute Command from Destination to Source:

cavisson@ubuntu:~/work$ traceroute 10.10.50.32
traceroute to 10.10.50.32 (10.10.50.32), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1  10.10.40.103 (10.10.40.103)  0.217 ms  0.193 ms  0.171 ms
2  10.10.50.32 (10.10.50.32)  0.247 ms  0.269 ms  0.249 ms

UI Setup

Now, upgrade NetChannel build on the NetChannel machine. In our case, it is 10.10.30.56.

Verification of NetChannel Installation
  1. Check NetChannel Product UI is getting displayed or not for that specific IP.

For Example: http://10.10.30.56:8001/ProductUI

  1. Login the machine with default credentials.

Configuration

Tunnel Creation

Tunnel allows for the movement of data from one network to another. It involves allowing private network communications to be sent across a public network (such as the Internet). To create or manage tunnels follow the below mentioned steps:

  1. Login into NetChannel UI.

2. Click the Configuration menu, it displays the following menu items:

  • Network Tunnel
  • Network Interface
  • NetChannel Settings
  1. Add the interface to the machine through UI; hence select the Network Interface option. Add all the interfaces using the Add button. The added interfaces looks like:

4. Now, add the tunnels between our source to destination. On the Configuration menu, go to Network Tunnels. Click the Add button to proceed:

5. Provide the below details:

  • Tunnel Name: It is the name of the tunnel.
    • It should be unique.
    • Maximum limit is 64 characters.
    • Must start with Alpha (a-z, A-Z) characters
    • Numeric (0-9) characters are also allowed in Tunnel name but after any character input for tunnel.
    • Some special characters (_ -. : ) are allowed in Tunnel name.
  • Source IP: It is the IP address of the source system from where the data is to be transferred.
    • It must be valid and in the proper format, like XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.
    • It is separated in four parts. Each part must have integer value in between 0 to 255
  • Source Netbits: Bits of IP address, which are used for representing the source network.
    • It should be between 1 and 32.
    • The default value is 32.
  • Destination IP: It is the IP address of the destination system to which the data is to be transferred
    • It must be valid and in the proper format, like XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.
    • It is separated in four parts. Each part must have integer value in between 0 to 255.
  • Destination Netbits: Bits of IP address, which are used for representing the destination network.
    • It should be between 1 and 32.
    • The default value is 32.

Enable WAN Simulation: Wide Area Network or WAN is used to test the performance of a real network. To enable the WAN simulation in the network, select the check box else clear it.

Asymmetric / Symmetric: To apply network characteristics as Asymmetric (that support more bandwidth in one direction than the other does), select the Asymmetric check box. If it is cleared, symmetric network characteristics are implemented where all devices transmit and receive data at equal rates.

    • In case of Symmetric, write option is available for only source to destination. The destination to source has only read option and the same configuration, which has been done for source to destination, is copied for destination to source. In symmetric case, add values for only source to destination in different fields (such as Bandwidth Constraints, Fixed Delay, Packet Loss, etc.) for testing the product.
    • In case of Asymmetric, read and write option is available for both, source to destination and destination to source. The user can individually configure for both the source and destination part. In case of Asymmetric mode, input data for both source to destination and destination to source.

Note: To test the tunnel, enable the WAN Simulation.

  1. After providing all the details, click the Save The system displays a message for successful uploading of tunnels records.

For Example: One tunnel is created named ‘Test’ from Source IP (10.10.50.32) to destination IP (10.10.40.104), where Bandwidth Constraints is fixed with 1000 Megabits per second and it is made under Asymmetric case i.e. all the configuration from source to destination is same for destination to source.

Uninstallation

  1. Remove the routing between source and destination from backend. Simply run the command on source and destination machine to delete the configured route.

For Example:

  • On Source machine:- route del 10.10.40.104 gw 10.50.98
  • On Destination machine:- route del 10.50.32 gw 10.10.40.103

Note: Run the above command using root users.      

  1. Delete the Tunnel from NetChannel UI.