OPNET NETWORK SIMULATOR PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Performance Analysis of RIP (Routing Information Protocol)

The objective of this project is to configure and analyze the performance of Routing Information

Protocol (RIP) model. We will set up a network that utilizes RIP as the routing protocol. We will

analyze the routing tables generated in the routers and observe how RIP is affected by link

failures.

Lab Instructions:

1) Start OPNET IT Guru

2) Choose File � New

3) Select Project and click OK

4) Enter the name of the project to be <your initials>_RIP, and the scenario to be

NO_Failure and click OK

5) Enter the following values the Startup wizard:

Initial Topology � Create Empty Scenario

Network Scale � Campus

Set XSpan to be 10Km and YSpan to be 10Km.

Do not select any technologies. Click Next

Review the values in the Startup Wizard. Click Ok.

6) Add two 100BaseT_LAN objects and one ethernet4_slip8_gtwy router to the project

workspace.

7) Connect the two LAN objects with the router using 100BaseT links.

8) Set the name of the router to be Router1 and the names of the two LANs to be Net10 and

Net11. You can do so by right-clicking on the object and selecting “Set Name”.

The network should appear as below:

9) Right-click Router1 object and select “Edit Attributes”. Expand the “IP Routing Routers”

hierarchy and set the value of “Routing Table Export” to Once at the end of the

simulation.

We need to now create three more copies of the above objects and interconnect them to create an

internetwork.

10) Select all the above objects and press Ctrl+C.

11) Then press Ctrl+V to past them at the appropriate locations to create the following

internetwork.

12) Connect the routers as shown above using PPP_DS3 links.

Now we will collect the statistics:

13) Right-click on the project workspace and select “Choose Individual Statistics”

14) Expand the “Global Statistics” hierarchy and then expand “RIP”. Select “Traffic

Received” and “Traffic Sent” in bits/sec.

15) Expand the “Node Statistics” hierarchy and then expand “Route Table”. Select “Total

Number of Updates”. Click OK

Now we need to configure some of the simulation parameters:

16) Click on the icon and the Configure Simulation window should appear.

17) Set the duration of the simulation to be 10 minutes.

18) Click on the Global Attributes tab and change the following attributes as shown below:

(i) IP Dynamic Routing Protocol

(ii) IP Interface Addressing Mode

(iii) RIP Sim Efficiency

If the RIP Sim Efficiency is enabled, then RIP will stop after the “RIP Stop Time”. But, we need

RIP to keep updating the routing table in case there is any change in the network.

19) Click Ok and then save the project

In the network we just created, the routers will build their routing tables and then they will not

need to update them further because we did not simulate any node or link failures.

Failure Scenario

In this scenario, we will simulate failures so that we can now compare the behavior of the routers

in both the cases.

20) Select “Duplicate Scenario” from the “Scenarios” menu and name it Failure. Click OK

21) Open the object palette by clicking the icon and select utilities from the drop-down

menu.

22) Add a Failure Recovery object to the workspace and name it Failure as shown below:

23) Right-click on the Failure object and select “Edit Attributes”

24) Expand the Link Failure/Recovery Specification hierarchy and set rows to 1. set the

attributes of the added row as shown below:

Click OK and then save the project.

25) Run the simulation for the duration of 10 minutes as before.

Now let us compare the results.

25) Right click on the project workspace and select “Compare Results”.

26) Expand the “Campus Network” hierarchy under “Object Statistics” and then expand

“Router1” hierarchy

27) Expand “Route Table” and then select “Total number of updates”.

28) Click Show and then in the figure space, right-click and change “Draw Style” to Bar

29) Capture the figure using PrntScrn.

30) Likewise, obtain figures for the total number of updates at all the other routers.

Before checking the contents of the routing tables, we need to determine the IP address

information for all interfaces in the current network. Note that the IP addresses are assigned

automatically during simulation and we have set the global attribute IP Interface Addressing

Mode to export the interface address information to a file.

31) Select the File menu. Choose Model Files � Refresh Model Directories. This updates the

model directories and their files

32) From the File menu, choose Open.

33) Instead of “Project”, select “Generic Data File” from the pull-down menu.

34) Select the <Your Initialis>_RIO-No_Failure-ip_addresses (Note that the other file created

from the Failure scenario should also contain the same information). Click OK.

35) The following is a part of the gdf file. It shows the IP addresses assigned to all interfaces

in the network.

Now let us check the contents of router R1 in both scenarios:

36) Open Results menu. Select “Open Simulation Log”. Expand the hierarchy as shown

below and click on the field “COMMON ROUTE TABLE”.

37) You will get the Routing table at Router1. Print the text file

38) Repeat the above process for all the four routers and print their routing tables.

39) Then, go to the Failure Scenario (by selecting Scenarios � Switch Scenario) and then

open Results menu.

40) Now, try to get the routing tables for the four routers in this scenario. Print them.

What to turn in:

1) Print out the layout of the network you implemented in this lab. On this layout, from the

information included in the gdf file, write down the IP addresses associated with the

routers as well as the addresses assigned to each subnetwork.

2) The routing tables at the four routers for both the “No_Failure” and “Failure” scenarios

3) Include figures for the total number of updates from the two scenarios.

4) Comments on the distance metrics and the insertion times in the above routing tables. In

other words, why do you have those values for these fields in the routing tables?

5) Create another scenario as a duplicate of the Failure scenario. Name the new scenario

“Recover”. In this new scenario, let the link connecting Router1 to Router2 recover after

400 seconds. Generate, analyze and submit the graph that shows the effect of this

recovery on the Total Number of Updates and the routing tables at the four routers.