X-Tend – extending the X-Bone for network experiments

The X-Tend extends the X-Bone overlay deployment tool to support large scale network emulation, dynamic topology control and additional new protocols and platforms for researches and classroom use. The X-Tend reuses physical resources more than once through node revistation and allows an overlay deployed on a small number of machines to emulate a network of much large scale. Users can explicitly select a subset of available components and dynamically reconfigure the overlay topology, such as adds and deletes nodes. The X-Tend is expected to support more platforms such as Solaris, MacOS X and Cisco IOS, as well as more protocols such as IPv6 and multicast.

Research Areas

Virtual Internet Architecture

  • Virtualization
  • Recursion (compile & runtime)
  • Naming and Numbering
  • Address resolution
  • Dynamic routing

Approach

  • Augment
    • Add prototyped features
    • Extend with recursive API
  • Simplify deployment and use
    • Apply turnkey boxes to reduce installation effort
    • Develop teaching examples

News & Updates

4/27/05

GX-Bone Software Release 3.2

  • Source
  • FreeBSD port and GUI
  • Linux Fedora Core 3 / Perl 5.8.5 rpm and GUI

4/30/04

X-Bone Software Release 3.1.1

4/21/04

X-Bone Software Release 3.1

1/30/04

X-Bone Software Release 3.0

4/15 — in progress

  • Dynamic Routing
  • Dynamic DNS
  • IPv6 support

3/1/2003 — 4/15/2003

  • Revisitation
  • Platform Compatibility Test instruction

2/15/2003

New Site for X-Tend!

2/3/2003

Lecture on X-Bone to CSCI558 Class at USC

1/15/2003

Testing X-Bone on Freebsd 4.7 and Redhat 8.0