Wireless link emulation in OneLab

This paper presents a work in progress to add emulation of IEEE 802.11 wireless links to the OneLab platform - a PlanetLab derivative. As for other emulators, our goal is to enable researchers to run repeatable experiments under controlled network conditions, and overcome limitations due to unavailable or expensive hardware. Our emulation model aims at reproducing the effects of wireless media on live traffic, but at the packet level and with a timing resolution in the order of 100μs or higher, comparable with the resolution of events visible to appli- cation processes. To this purpose, we define a simplified, packet level model of the wireless link, and extend the pop- ular dummynet emulator to support this model. In the paper we describe the overall architecture of our emulation extension, discuss the wireless model used, and illustrate the user- and system- interfaces to configure and access the emulated environment.