A Didactic Platform for Testing and Developing Routing Protocols
Adam Kaliszan, Mariusz Głąbowski, Sławomir Hanczewski · 2012
Abstract—This paper presents a platform for testing and the development of new routing protocols. The platform is an alternative to already existing solutions of the type based on physical devices or on virtualization. In the proposed solution, the testbed nodes are simple routers, i.e., the devices of System on Chip type, with embedded Linux system. These routers perform only packet switching functions, i.e., the function of the Data Plane. The functions related to supporting routing protocols, i.e., the functions of the Control Plane, for all nodes have been moved to a dedicated computer. The Control Plane functions are provided by the Quagga software router, modified for the purposes of the platform. With low cost and small size of single nodes, the platform can also be used in teaching. Keywords-Routing protocols; Software Router.