ns3-distributed-bridge is a special bridge NetDevice that allows you to bridge a simulated network in ns3 with remote networks. The remote networks can be another ns3 simulation or a regular Linux host/bridge.
To install ns3-distributed-bridge, clone ns3-distributed-bridge as distributed-bridge in src/ folder of ns3, and reconfigure ns3.
$ git clone https://github.com/Nat-Lab/ns3-distributed-bridge src/distributed-bridge
$ ./waf configure
To use ns3-distributed-bridge, you need to start a distribution server. You can find the server here: https://github.com/Nat-Lab/bridge-distribute.
Once you have the server started, you can bridge your simulated network to the distribution server. Bridging can be easily done with the DistributedBridgeHelper. The helper's usage is similar to TapBridge, except you don't need an IP address on the bridged device.
First, construct the helper object with parameters (const char *server_addr, in_port_t port, uint8_t network_id), where:
server_addr: the IP address string in the dotted notation of the dist-server.port: the port number of dist-server.network_id: the ID of the network to bridge. Consider it as VLAN ID. Networks with the same ID will be bridge together by dist-server.
An example of bridging a CSMA network with only one node to the server is shown below:
// Helpers
CsmaHelper csma;
Ipv4AddressHelper addr;
InternetStackHelper inet;
// == dist-bridge configuration ==
// server: 127.0.0.1
// server port: 2672
// network id: 1
DistributedBridgeHelper dist ("127.0.0.1", 2672, 1);
// Create Nodes
Ptr<Node> client_node = CreateObject<Node> ();
Ptr<Node> br_node = CreateObject<Node> ();
// Install internet stack & CSMA
inet.Install(NodeContainer (client_node, br_node));
NetDeviceContainer devs = csma.Install(nodes);
Ptr<NetDevice> dev_br = devs.Get(0);
Ptr<NetDevice> dev_client = devs.Get(1);
// Assign address for client. Note that no address is needed on dist-bridge
// node
addr.SetBase("10.0.0.0", "255.255.255.0");
addr.Assign(dev_client);
// Install dist-bridge
dist.Install(br_node, dev_br);UNLICENSE