On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 1:01 PM, Robert Citek<[email protected]> wrote:
>The hope is that by having a VM I
> could then test out various firmware features before running them on
> the router.
Actually, it's more than that: I'm trying to create virtual networks
with virtual machines. The most common way I use a virtual machine is
to try out new features or configurations. When I finally strike
something that works, I migrate the virtual machine to a real machine.
More recently, I've been experimenting with building virtual
networks, connecting a number of virtual machines together to try out
different network configurations and networking tools. Like with the
virtual machines, I want to work out different network configurations
in the virtual world. Then when I've struck upon a setup that works,
I migrate that virtual setup to the real world.
However, in that virtual world I have run into some limitations with
my preferred VM software, Virtual Box. Its networking features are
limited. For example, there is no control over the DHCP server and
there is no way to discover what IP address has been assigned to what
virtual machine. In other words, the VBox virtual router does not act
like a real-world managed router. As a workaround, I created a VM
router with Ubuntu. A simplified topology looks like this:
{WAN | VM router | LAN } -- {VM 1...n}
The WAN side of the VM router is using a VBox NAT interface and the
LAN side uses a named VBox Internal Interface (e.g. ifoobar). All the
VMs are using the same named VBox Internal Interface (e.g. ifoobar).
This gives me an enormous amount of flexibility to experiment. I can
try out different DCHP configurations, iptable rules, or DNS settings.
I can even create a fallback router and simulate what happens when
the main router goes down. And I don't have a bunch of equipment and
cables to worry about. I just click between the different windows.
The disadvantage to using a linux VM as a router is that when it comes
time to migrate this network to the real world, I have to have a real
linux machine for the router. I'd much rather have a small router,
e.g. the WRT54G, in the real world. And that brought me to my
questions.
Regards,
- Robert
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