Tutorial: Simulating Networks in Your Laptop

Maria Matejka presents a tool for simulating networks on a laptop, developed quietly since 2015 and similar to ContainerLab. The tool uses network namespaces, PID namespaces, and user namespaces without requiring cloud resources or isolated images, sharing the disk for rapid simulation of network scenarios. Maria demonstrates setting up machines and links, configuring routing daemons, and scaling to hundreds of nodes, highlighting its utility for teaching and testing routing protocols. The presentation concludes with a Q&A session, addressing OS support (Linux), multicast packet forwarding, plans for container and KVM support, prioritization of future features like bridging topologies, and the challenges of running Docker-like containers natively.