Virtual Wireless Network Card for Linux

Overview:

Virtualization of complex network infrastructures is nowadays rather easy. Virtual servers and the connecting topology can be created with the click of a few buttons. Unfortunately, most of the virtualization tools were created for real-world usage and therefore lack functionality only needed in simulation environments.

In the DES-Testbed, we use virtualization based on the Linux Kernel Virtual Maschine (KVM) in order to create a virtual version of the real testbed. Over one hundred routers are running virtualized on one powerful server.

While this virtual environment can already be used for basic testing, it lacks a virtual wireless interface that mimics the behaviour of a real wireless network, e.g. simulated packet loss, interference, signal strength etc.

The goal of this thesis is to design and implement this virtual WLAN interface to be used with KVM.

Objectives:

• Evaluate different approaches
• Design and implement WiFi simulation functionality for KVM based virtualization environments
• Implement an emulation of the wireless medium