VIMINAL (*)

VIrtual Model for Ip Network Architecture Lab

Available titles
MOBIDIK lab	Linux Routing lab	MEDI6 lab	VODKA lab

(*) The Viminal Hill (Latin Collis Viminalis, Italian Viminale) is the smallest and least important of the famous seven hills of Rome, and as such always referred to as collis rather than mons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viminal
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLATOP*/Viminalis.html

Introduction

VIMINAL (VIrtual Model for Ip Network Architecture Lab) platform is an autonomous network and system lab environment. Available on a liveDVD, it offers network models on which you have extended rights. It integrates all the materials needed to securely play system and IP network labs on common computers. The main goal is to play such labs, with no installation nor configuration modifications on your computer.

0.x versions of VIMINAL liveDVD are based on VNUML (Virtual Network User-Mode Linux http://jungla.dit.upm.es/~vnuml/), a neat project of Telematics Engeneering Department (DIT) of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM). Since 1.0, virtualization environment is qemu-kvm in association with “libvirt” library and “virsh” tool.

VIMINAL collection

VIMINAL offers several titles :

MOBIDIK lab (Model to Observe Basic Infrastructure Doing Identification with Kerberos) : This lab model is made up of three virtual machines (kdc, appsrv, and client1) interconnected on 192.168 .1.0/24 mobidik lan. The lab goal is to configure MOBIDIK.LAB Kerberos realm and observe, using wireshark network analyzer, traffic between the different protagonists during Kerberos authentication process.

Download :
  - Lab instruction sheet : viminal-mobidik-lab/instruction-sheets/viminal-mobidik-lab-all-in-1-en.pdf
  - iso file of the DVD : mobidik-lab/viminal-v0.2-r20080821.iso
  - MD5 hash of the DVD : mobidik-lab/viminal-v0.2-r20080821.iso.DIGESTS,md5.txt
  - Hardware requirement : To play the model, the workstation must have a swap partition if RAM memory is less than 1 Go.

Linux Routing lab : (new edition – work in progress).This lab model is composed of 4 GNU/Linux hosts (host1 to host 4) interconnected by 4 networks (net1 to net4). The main goal is to let you configure network interfaces of each host, make connectivity tests, and then configure routing functions to convert host in router. That model was used to validate VIMINAL platform concepts.

Download :
  - Lab instruction sheet :
  - iso file of the DVD :
  - MD5 hash of the DVD :
  - Hardware requirement : To play the model, the workstation must have a swap partition if RAM memory is less than 1 Go.
MEDI6 lab (Model for Experimentation and Discovery of Ip v6) : This lab build an Ipv6 architecture. The lab goal is in its first part, to familiarize with basics of the new protocol as IPv6 address format, stateless auto-configuration, IPv6 address DNS integration and observe IPv6 traffic, using wireshark network analyzer. The second part is about Ipv4/IPv6 cohabitation and transition tools.

Download :
  - Lab instruction sheet : viminal-medi6-lab/instruction-sheets/viminal-medi6-lab-all-in-1-en.pdf
  - iso file of the DVD : viminal/dwnld/medi6-lab/viminal-medi6-v0.3-r20090819.iso
  - MD5 hash of the DVD : viminal/dwnld/medi6-lab/viminal-medi6-v0.3-r20090819.iso.DIGESTS.md5.txt
  - Hardware requirement : To play the model, the workstation must have a swap partition if RAM memory is less than 1,5 Go.
VODKA lab (Virtualisation Operation Discovery on Kvm Architecture) : This lab is a tutorial for the discovery and ownership of KVM (Kernel Based Virtual Machine) virtualization environment, libvirt library and related tools "virsh", "virt-install", "virt -manager ". This is the first variation of VIMINAL based on KVM and libvirt "virsh.

Download :
  - Lab instruction sheet :viminal-vodka-lab/instruction-sheets/viminal-vodka-lab-en.pdf
  - iso file of the DVD :  viminal/dwnld/vodka-lab/viminal-vodka-v1.0-r20100113.iso
  - MD5 hash of the DVD : viminal/dwnld/vodka-lab/viminal-vodka-v1.0-r20100113.iso.DIGESTS.md5.txt
  - Hardware requirement : Virtual machine performances can be low if you don't have a HVM (Hardware Virtual Machine) based processor on your host as Intel-VT or AMD-V.

To be published

MOLDOVA lab (Model to Observe Ldap Directory Objects with Versatile Attributes) : LDAP lab
MIMOSA lab (Model for Initiation into network Management Operations with SNMP Agent) : SNMP lab
Shibboleth lab : ?
...

Utilization

The easiest way to play the lab is to download and burn the iso file on a DVD. You, then, have just to boot your workstation on that DVD. Lab instruction sheet (in english and in french) and the model network map are available on the desktop of your host. At the end of the lab, shutting down the workstation will automatically eject the DVD. The workstation can then be rebooted on its initial operating system.

Nota : Depending of the model to play, the workstation must have a minimal RAM space if no swap partition is available on one of its disks.

elon la maquette, la station doit disposer d'un espace mémoire minimal, si le poste de travail ne dispose pas d'une partition de swap présente sur un de ses disques.

VIMINAL and virtualization

VIMINAL models are built on User Mode Linux virtualization environment. Trying to play the DVD as virtual appliance brings about a two level virtualization stack. Result is without guaranty.

KVM : LiveDVD and model work quite well. The DVD development and tests use KVM environment.
QEMU/KQEMU : Works but that's not reasonable. LiveDVD boots but model start is too long.
VMWARE : While VMWARE is freely available VIMINAL has not be tested on that platform. I don't use VMAWRE environment, as I don't want to be dependent on dominant sofware vendor.
XEN : An old version of Xen, in paravitualized mode, didn't allow another level of virtualization in a domU virtual machine. Stacking two virtualization mechanisms was not supported. I don't know if a newer version of Xen or if the full virtualization mode (HVM) can do it.
HyperV : Not tested, probably the same limitation described for Xen
VirtualBox : Not tested
...

Evolutions

In near future, it is planned to migrate VIMINAL from VNUML (Usermode Linux) environment to the KVM / Libvirt / virsh and openvswitch.

Jacques Landru
Ingénieur d'Etudes – Institut TELECOM
TELECOM Lille 1
Dept Informatique et Réseaux

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