In order to log on to one of the resources, you need to download a private key and save it in the .ssh folder in your home directory. If you are using Windows based ssh clients, use the specific directions provided by that client…

Download the private key.. well look at the pictures below…

Once you have downloaded the private key and given it a name that you will remember, you are ready to log on to the console of any resource. On linux, I just open a terminal and type the following command….

ssh username@pc435.emulab.net -p 22 -i .ssh/key_aug_13

Here, the PC I am connecting to is pc435, port number 22 and the key that I just saved is called key_aug_13 and it is in the .ssh directory. You will find the resource name next to the picture of the resource on the flack screen

Note that I am asked to enter a passphrase for the key. The passphrase is something you set up when you configure your account on the GENI portal. If you forgot the passphrase, you can either use the ssh command to remove passphrase from the key or generate a new key and start all over again.

Now that you have access to the console of this machine, you can do what ever you like. I will write about an example later. But first lets learn how to delete and release resources so that others can use it…..

Now you are ready for your first experiment!!

The next steps are to design the network and reserve resources…

1) Select the sites from where you want to get resources. You will see something like this

As a beginner, I used only one site to start with, it can be any site you like. Once you make that selection. click continue at the bottom of the popup window. This will take you to the next screen where you will see that the site is “discovering resources”. See screenshot below.

You might have to wait for sometime, just stare at the screen or get a warm beverage to distract yourself and resist the urge to back or refresh buttons on your browser. Eventually, the wait will be over and you will see the following screen with a message on the top “Get user: Finished”

2) Now you can add a new slice, by clicking  the button near the top of the left bar. Give your slice a meaningful name to reflect the kind of work you will be doing. I am calling mine testscenario. You will see the following screen: 

3) Add some resources to your slice. You can add a PC or a VM. You can also add a lan. You just need to click on the resource you want to add like this:

CAUTION: If you ever make a mistake on this page or any other point, do NOT hit the back button on your browser. If you do, then you have to start all over again!! I have made this mistake a countless number of times. 

Try not to add a bare metal PC in your experiment although that is what I show in this example. Bare PCs are used only if there is a special need for it in an experiment. Most experiments can work just as well with VMs.

4) After adding resources to your slice, you need to connect them. Simply click near (no on) one of the objects you want to connect. You will see a black line. Drag the mouse to the object you want to connect to. A green line will appear and your objects will be connected.

Note that this is a logical connection not a physical one. So the two objects may physically be separated from each other but are logically connected. Here is my sample network.

5) Now click the submit button, click yes on the pop-up message to confirm the creation of a new sliver and wait for the request and response to complete. The background of your scenario will turn yellow and then finally green when the sliver is created and ready for you.

Sliver resources being reserved 

Sliver resources reserved, ready to start experiments

Next we will see how to log on to individual reserved resources…..

Once you have your GENI credentials, you will need to generate your ssl and ssh keys and then you can go on to the main tutorial and start exercising your fingers while straining your eyes and  neck….

This is how you will logon to the site and start your first experiment. After speaking with experts in the field, I came to the conclusion to use flack rather than OMNI for my experiment needs. Therefore, I am going to show how to use flack (If you did not take my advise from the previous post, you don’t know what flack is :D)

LOGIN STEPS

1) Go to https://portal.geni.net/ and click on USE GENI button

2) If you are affiliated with one of the partners, select that school otherwise type GENI Project Office in the textbox and allow auto complete

3) If this is the first time you logged in, you will need to wither create a project or join a project. If you have the project lead privilege, you can create a project yourself. Otherwise, you can either request a lead privilege or ask someone else to create a project for you.

4) Once you have created or joined a project, you can see the project when you scroll down. You should click on “Create  Slice”, provide a slice name and description. Remember that slice names should contain only letters and numbers.

5) If this is your first time on GENI, before you can do anything meaningful, the ssh keys should be uploaded. This process needs to be done only once.

6) GENERATING SSH KEYS: You can follow the instructions on the next few screens to generate and download a private key. You must save the private key somewhere so that you have access to it when you connect to the GENI resources from different computers.

7) Now you can go back to the slice from the GENI portal home page and click on “Launch Flack”

8) Next time you login on GENI portal, you can go straight to your slice (or create a new one) and launch flack

Great!! You are now seeing flack on your screen (except if you don’t have adobe flash player installed.. if this is you then go ahead and install flash first)

While waiting to get your account, a serious experimenter will start getting used to the GENI terminology. Best place for that would be a GENI summer school or a GENI engineering conference. But one may not have time or money to go to these events. Therefore, we awaken the self-learner within ourselves and decide to learn by staring at a computer screen. If you are going to take this route, then spend a good 2 hours staring at these sites: http://groups.geni.net/geni/wiki/GeniNewcomersWelcome  ,   http://groups.geni.net/geni/wiki/GENIConcepts and take notes because there is a lot to read and remember……

Before starting to get the feel of GENI, one needs to get a GENI account. I requested one from https://portal.geni.net/idp/request.html.  Once you fill out all the details, it can take a few days to get a response from the project office at BBN. Once your request is approved, you will receive a bunch of emails, encouraging you to seek help if you need and getting you all excited about GENI and its potentials. Sure it is exciting but you will be the true judge of that……

I am about to spend the last part of my summer writing about my experience with the GENI portal and explaining how to get started with this large federation of networking testbeds. This blog is meant to be highly technical and is being written with the hope that systems researchers working in  the networking area at CUNY will benefit from the information.

First, an overview of GENI. The best way to fond out what GENI is all about is to go on its website. http://www.geni.net/ and read the “ABOUT GENI” page. In short, GENI is a platform that connects various networking testbeds around the globe so that researchers can perform at-scale experiments to test their bright, futuristic networking ideas. GENI is a work in progress and is being managed by BBN. BBN is refered to as the “Geni-GPO” throughout the GENI literature.

Now that we know what is GENI, lets start working……