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• Overview
• Building ns-3
• Testing ns-3
• Running ns-3
• ns-3 Documentation
• Working with the Development Version of ns-3
• Contributing to ns-3
• Reporting Issues
• ns-3 App Store

NOTE: Much more substantial information about ns-3 can be found athttps://www.nsnam.org

ns-3 is a free open source project aiming to build a discrete-eventnetwork simulator targeted for simulation research and education.This is a collaborative project; we hope thatthe missing pieces of the models we have not yet implementedwill be contributed by the community in an open collaborationprocess. If you would like to contribute to ns-3, please checktheContributing to ns-3 section below.

This README excerpts some details from a more extensivetutorial that is maintained at:https://www.nsnam.org/documentation/latest/

The code for the framework and the default models providedby ns-3 is built as a set of libraries. User simulationsare expected to be written as simple programs that makeuse of these ns-3 libraries.

To build the set of default libraries and the exampleprograms included in this package, you need to use thens3 tool. This tool provides a Waf-like API to theunderlying CMake build manager.Detailed information on how to usens3 is included in thequick start guide.

Before building ns-3, you must configure it.This step allows the configuration of the build options,such as whether to enable the examples, tests and more.

To configure ns-3 with examples and tests enabled,run the following command on the ns-3 main directory:

./ns3 configure --enable-examples --enable-tests

Then, build ns-3 by running the following command:

./ns3 build

By default, the build artifacts will be stored in thebuild/ directory.

The current codebase is expected to build and run on theset of platforms listed in therelease notesfile.

Other platforms may or may not work: we welcome patches toimprove the portability of the code to these other platforms.

ns-3 contains test suites to validate the models and detect regressions.To run the test suite, run the following command on the ns-3 main directory:

./test.py

More information about ns-3 tests is available in thetest framework section of the manual.

On recent Linux systems, once you have built ns-3 (with examplesenabled), it should be easy to run the sample programs with thefollowing command, such as:

./ns3 run simple-global-routing

That program should generate asimple-global-routing.tr texttrace file and a set ofsimple-global-routing-xx-xx.pcap binaryPCAP trace files, which can be read bytcpdump -n -tt -r filename.pcap.The program source can be found in theexamples/routing directory.

If you do not plan to modify ns-3 upstream modules, you can geta pre-built version of the ns-3 python bindings.

pip install --user ns3

If you do not havepip, check their documentsonhow to install it.

After installing thens3 package, you can then create your simulation python script.Below is a trivial demo script to get you started.

fromnsimportnsns.LogComponentEnable("Simulator",ns.LOG_LEVEL_ALL)ns.Simulator.Stop(ns.Seconds(10))ns.Simulator.Run()ns.Simulator.Destroy()

The simulation will take a while to start, while the bindings are loaded.The script above will print the logging messages for the called commands.

Usehelp(ns) to check the prototypes for all functions defined in thens3 namespace. To get more useful results, query specific classes ofinterest and their functions e.g.,help(ns.Simulator).

Smart pointersPtr<> can be differentiated from objects by checking if__deref__ is listed indir(variable). To dereference the pointer,usevariable.__deref__().

Most ns-3 simulations are written in C++ and the documentation isoriented towards C++ users. The ns-3 tutorial programs (first.cc,second.cc, etc.) have Python equivalents, if you are looking forsome initial guidance on how to use the Python API. The PythonAPI may not be as full-featured as the C++ API, and an API guidefor what C++ APIs are supported or not from Python do not currently exist.The project is looking for additional Python maintainers to improvethe support for future Python users.

Once you have verified that your build of ns-3 works by runningthesimple-global-routing example as outlined in therunning ns-3section, it is quite likely that you will want to get started on readingsome ns-3 documentation.

All of that documentation should always be available fromthe ns-3 website:https://www.nsnam.org/documentation/.

This documentation includes:

• a tutorial
• a reference manual
• models in the ns-3 model library
• a wiki for user-contributed tips:https://www.nsnam.org/wiki/
• API documentation generated using doxygen: this isa reference manual, most likely not very well suitedas introductory text:https://www.nsnam.org/doxygen/index.html

If you want to download and use the development version of ns-3, youneed to use the toolgit. A quick and dirty cheat sheet is includedin the manual, but reading through the Gittutorials found in the Internet is usually a good idea if you are notfamiliar with it.

If you have successfully installed Git, you can geta copy of the development version with the following command:

git clone https://gitlab.com/nsnam/ns-3-dev.git

However, we recommend to follow the GitLab guidelines for starters,that includes creating a GitLab account, forking the ns-3-dev projectunder the new account's name, and then cloning the forked repository.You can find more information in themanual.

The process of contributing to the ns-3 project varies withthe people involved, the amount of time they can investand the type of model they want to work on, but the currentprocess that the project tries to follow is described in thecontributing codewebsite and in theCONTRIBUTING.md file.

If you would like to report an issue, you can open a new issue in theGitLab issue tracker.Before creating a new issue, please check if the problem that you are facingwas already reported and contribute to the discussion, if necessary.

The officialns-3 App Store is a centralized directorylisting third-party modules for ns-3 available on the Internet.

More information on how to submit an ns-3 module to the ns-3 App Store is availablein thens-3 App Store documentation.