London Metropolitan University, Faculty of Computing

CT3003N Data Communications/CTP143N Computer Network Analysis and Simulation/

CC3009N Network Management and Security/
CTP3016N Network Project Preparation/CTPP01N Communications Project
NS-2 Tutorial 1:
Introduction to Network Simulator ns and Network Animator nam
Goal of the Session: to get familiar with the Network Simulator ns and Network Animator nam.

Equipment: Unix system accessible via Windows workstations, Network Simulator ns and
Network Animator nam and on-line tutorial. Network Simulator ns and Network Animator nam
are described in the document "NS for Beginners", by Altman and Jimenez http://www-
sop.inria.fr/maestro/personnel/Eitan.Altman/COURS-NS/n3.pdf. Tools are available for
downloading from http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns/ns-build.html.

1. Starting Unix emulation session via Exceed:

• From Windows go to Start/Programs/Internet tools/Exceed 7.1/Exceed .
• After some time there appears Unix login window. Remember that before logging in you can
choose what kind of "Desktop Environment" you prefer to use. In order to do so it is
necessary to point a mouse onto the "Options", press and hold left button and without
releasing move it to the "Session/Common Desk Environment" (we would not recommend
you to use "Open Windows" environment).

2. Logging in:
• First enter your Unix user ID (the Unix account is different from your usual network account)
and click [OK];
• And then password (differently from Netware it is not visible at all how many characters are
entered - so, be careful!) and click [OK];
• After some time there appears a window suggesting you to register as a Solaris user – go to
the upper-left corner, left-click-and-hold and move to the "Close" and this window will
disappear.

3. Access to Tutorial:
• With the help of File Manager navigate to the /internet/ns/docs/tutorial/ns-tutorial/index.html
and start browser by clicking on this file – it will start Marc Greis's tutorial. Focus on Chapters
IV, V, VI and VIII;
• After familiarisation with textual editing of tcl scripts try to use graphical editor available in
nam and repeat the same exercises as in the tutorial. Which features you think are missing in
the Editor?
• There are other tutorials which you may want to explore sometime later - look at the directory
/internet/ns/docs/tutorial/ .

4. Finish session properly:

• At the end of work quit from nam and after that click button [EXIT] which is located at the
bottom area of the screen. Failure to do this will result that nam leaves special system file
.nam-port and next time another instance of nam will not start assuming that nam is
already running.
• If you have a problem with animation of model script which you were able to run earlier then
check if file .nam-port is present in your work directory by entering the following
command (note that ls command without key –a will not show it because it is “hidden” file)
% ls –n –a .nam-port
and if .nam-port is present then remove it first
% rm .nam-port
and try again.

A.Pakštas 1 of 1 NS2-T1.doc
21.10.2008