Using NS Simulator

Installations:

• NS is installed in minix.cs.sunysb.edu at /usr/local/src/nsintall/ns-allinone-2.30/ns-2.30. You can run ns off from this installation. No need to install it yourself on your own directory unless required by the project you will be doing. You can remotely ssh to minix to run NS.  You can also install and run NS from your own laptop. In this case, using Linux or any Unix-based OS is the best option, though it also should run on windows using cygwin.
• On minix add /usr/local/src/nsintall/ns-allinone-2.30/bin to your path. This means issuing simple commands like
  set path = ($path /usr/local/src/nsintall/ns-allinone-2.30/bin);
  Assuming that you are using csh, add these lines to your .cshrc file in your home directory
  If you are using bash, then add the following to your .bash_profile or .bashrc file
  export PATH=$PATH: /usr/local/src/nsintall/ns-allinone-2.30/bin;
• NS is run as "ns my_simulation.tcl" where the my_simulation.tcl is the simulation script. By default, the trace file is created in your current directory.
• Quite a few scripts are available in the ns-tutorial/example directory in the NS installation. Look them up for examples. Copy those example files to your local directory and run ns "script filename"
• Note that the network animator NAM uses X-windows. If you are working remotely, you need to have a remote display. If you are using a MS windows machine to ssh to minix, you will need to use a X server on your machine. If you are a CS graduate student, we have licenses for some X servers. Download from here. Most often you will not need to use NAM.

Manual and tutorials:

• NS Simulator for Beginners, by Eitan Altman, Tania Jimenez (an excellent tutorial).
• NS by Example, by Chung and Claypool, RPI (easy intro, the example script was used in the class, start here).
• Marc Greis's tutorial (quite popular and easy reading as well)
• NS Manual (the most definitive manual, though not everything is really documented, use this on-demand)
• The Network Simulator - ns2 (everything about ns, including contributed codes, FAQ, debugging tips, mailing lists etc.)

Materials used in class:

• NS2 lecture slides.
• ns-simple.tcl (the same example shown in class). Note that the example is set up to run NAM. You can turn it off easily by removing the "exec nam ..." command. The trace will be generated in the out.nam file.
• Tarred exercised used in class.