Interactive GUI for exploring network layer routing algorithms. Built using Golang and Gotk for ui elements.
- Network layouts can be created by either adding routers and connections in the application, or loading the layout from a csv. The layout is specified as a csv consisting of rows
<router name>, <ip address>for routers and<router 1 name>, <router 2 name>, <connection weight>for network connections. This layout can be loaded at startup using
go run main.go -f <filename>
- After setting up the layout, a message can be sent between two routers.
- There are 3 basic steps to routing, broadcast, detect and next hop.
- Broadcast sends a message (not the one being routed) from a router to all neighbours. This is used to share local information at a router globally, and the specific message is implementation dependent.
- Detect updates the routers knowledge of the neighbours, specifically the distance each neighbour is from the router.
- Next hop tells the router which currently has the message to forward it to the next router.
- These actions can be undone using previous state to make different decisions during the routing process.
- The internal state of each router can be viewed by selecting a router.
To add a new routing algorithm, implement the Router interface from router/state.go and update the function newRouter in main.go to create this new router.
Run go run main.go
Server Icon image from UXWing