NS-2 Q/A

You can click here to search the ns-2 mailing list archives.

I have included answers to some the questions asked by the people using NS-2 for simulation in the projects. I cannot vouch for the complete accuracy of all my answers, so it might be a better idea to crosscheck with the official mailing list archives. However if you send me a mail , I shall try to answer it and put it up on this page, as well as try and get the proper pointers to the related postings on the NS-2 archives. Please check this page before sending me a mail.

• What network size can I simulate in NS?

That depends. Off the top of my head I would say not more than 500. Even then the simulation can be very slow. However, you can do several optimizations to improve performance, like turning off some traces, removing redundant packet headers.

• Regd. ns2 , I wanted to know whether you tried to install it on Windows ever ? I mean what is the difference if I run in on Linux or Windows ?

The utility is just the same. However, installation in Windows is supposed to be a problem, though people have done it. You can get some pointers regarding that by searching the ns-mailing list archives. I know for a fact that ns-2.1b8a compiles cleanly on red hat linux 7.0. You can find guidelines for compiling under windows at http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns/ns-win32-build.html

• I went through your slides on NS. I tried the ping example, it is saying invalid packet type (Ping). Could you please help me regarding this?

You have to make some modifications to packet.h and tcl/lib/packet.tcl. Have a look at section 3 of chapter 7 of Mark Gries' tutorial at 
http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns/tutorial/index.html for the same.

The official NS-2 web page is here.

You can find my class presentation and the handouts here.