April 13, 2018
This is planned to be the last development release of the upcoming INET-4.0 version.
All originally planned refactorings have been completed, and we don’t expect too many changes until the final version is released. This version requires OMNeT++ 5.3 or later.
The highlights of this release are:
Documentation
The somewhat outdated ‘INET Framework for OMNeT++ Manual’ draft has been split into two documents. One is called the User’s Guide and the other one is called the Developer’s Guide. The reason for the split is that the two documents have different target audiences, and they focus on introducing different aspects of the INET Framework.
The User’s Guide is intended for users who are mainly interested in assembling simulations using the existing components provided by the INET Framework. In contrast, the Developer’s Guide is intended for developers who are mainly interested in developing their own protocols as an addition to the INET Framework. Both guides are work in progress, but many parts have been added, deleted, and rewritten compared to the old manual.
Packet API
The packet API has been finalized. Several Packet and Chunk functions have been renamed for better consistency and more clarity. Affected C++ class level and function level documentation has been updated.
For more details, see the related patch at: https://github.com/inet-framework/inet/commit/cf00e516f318893de5f396a498eb11592d8dd1b9
Packet dissector
The packet API has been extended with a new packet dissector API. The packet dissector analyzes a packet solely based on the assigned packet protocol and the data it contains. The analysis is done according to the protocol logic as opposed to the actual representation of the data. The packet dissector works similarly to a parser. Basically, it walks through each part (such as protocol headers) of a packet in order. For each part, it determines the corresponding protocol and the most specific representation for that protocol.
The packet dissector is mostly implemented in the PacketDissector C++ class. It relies on small registered protocol-specific dissector classes such as the Ipv4ProtocolDissector. User defined protocols can register their own protocol dissector classes to extend the functionality of the generic packet dissector.
Packet filter
Filtering packets based on the actual data they contain is a long time missing functionality of INET. With the help of the new packet dissector API, it is very simple to create such packet filters.
In order to simplify filtering, INET provides a new generic expression-based packet filter implemented in the PacketFilter C++ class. The expression syntax is the same as other OMNeT++ expressions, and the data filter is matched against individual parts of the packet as found by the packet dissector. For example, the expression “inet::Ipv4Header and srcAddress(10.0.0.*)” matches all packets that contains an IPv4 header with a ‘10.0.0’ source address prefix.
Packet printer
Based on the new packet dissector, the INET packet printer has been reworked. The new packet printer is implemented in the PacketPrinter C++ class. It relies on small protocol specific printer classes to form the user readable string representation. User defined protocols can register their own protocol printer classes to extend the functionality of the generic packet printer.
With the OMNeT++ 5.3 version the message printer API has been changed to provide support for ANSI escape sequences for styling, and for options. The new INET packet printer allows showing/hiding columns and control various printing features from Qtenv. The new packet printer provides the following columns in Qtenv: ‘Source’, ‘Destination’, ‘Protocol’, ‘Length’, and ‘Info’ similarly to the well-known Wireshark protocol analyzer. The info column for simple packets is assembled inside-out in terms of protocol nesting, but for more complicated packets (e.g. ones using aggregation) it is assembled left to right.
Packet tags
With the OMNeT++ 5.3 version, the old experimental API for attaching tag objects to packets is no longer available. Meanwhile INET has been extended with a very similar, although not exactly source code compatible API.
The most important consequence is that cMessage and cPacket instances cannot have tags attached any more. In order to make dispatching non-packet messages between protocols still possible, two new cMessage subclasses called Request and Indication have been introduced. Protocols send instances of said classes to request services from other protocols or indicate status changes to other protocols.
SCTP
With this new release, SCTP, the last remaining protocol, has also been ported to the new packet API.
Many thanks to Irene Rüngeler for her valuable contribution.
Packet drill
The last remaining application has also been ported to the new packet API. This application is heavily used for testing UDP, TCP, and SCTP transport protocols. All tests under the packetdrill folder pass.
Mobility
Throughout the mobility API and implementation, speed has been renamed to velocity where appropriate. The reason is that speed is generally considered a scalar quantity whereas velocity is considered a vector quantity.
The documentation of orientation has been updated to clarify how exactly it is meant to be understood. As a somewhat related change, the double type of angles in mobility models and geographic positioning (longitude, latitude) has been replaced with compile-time checked C++ types called rad and deg for clarity.
New mobility models have been added, some of which allow the combination of existing mobility models. The SuperpositioningMobility combines the trajectory of several other mobility modules using superposition. The AttachedMobility provides a mobility that is attached to another mobility at a given offset.
Various renames
All network interfaces have been renamed to have ‘Interface’ suffix in their names. All signals having the old ‘NF_’ (obsolete NotificationBoard) prefix in their names have been renamed according to the new INET signal naming scheme. Moreover, many functions have been renamed (e.g. camel case) to use the INET C++ naming scheme.
Visualization
Physical transmission medium, data link and physical link, network path, and packet drop visualizers have been extended with the new packet data filtering. This allows, for example, to configure several network path visualizers within an IntegratedMultiCanvasVisualizer to display the path of packets with certain destination addresses differently.
PCAP recording
Similarly to visualization, PCAP recording has also been extended with the new packet data filtering. This allows recording only certain packets in a PCAP file, which results in drastically reduced file size and significantly increased performance.
Other notable changes
The protocol registration C++ interface has been changed to provide better support for the message dispatching mechanism. The result is that protocols and MessageDispatcher modules can be connected in more flexible ways. In fact, MessageDispatchers now only have one gate vector to connect to, they learn where protocols are and act accordingly. Network nodes are free to connect protocols directly or by using one or several MessageDispatchers as they see fit.
The physical environment ground model has been extended with a new OSG based OsgEarthGround model which uses the elevation data of the map. The ground models have been also extended with the computation of the ground normal vector.
Some globally registered protocol identifiers (e.g. Protocol::ieee80211) have been split into separate PHY, MAC, and MGMT protocols to disambiguate packet parts for the packet dissector. This only affects the registered protocol identifiers, actual protocol implementations are unaffected.
Several MSG file customizations (i.e. @customize) have been refactored or eliminated altogether by using the new MSG compiler features of OMNeT++. The main purpose is to simplify MSG files, remove unnecessary C++ customizations, and to ease understanding and maintaining these files.
Potential infinite loop in the GPSR MANET routing has been fixed.
Read the what’s new file for more detail and download INET-3.99.3 now.
INET Framework