Project Status:

Complete

Desription

This project integrates multiple components to evaluate the IEEE 802.1CB Frame Replication and Elimination for Reliability (FRER) standard.

Pre-requisites

• Supported Operating Systems
  • Ubuntu 20.04+ (tested)
  • Any Linux distribution with kernel ≥ 5.4
  • A multi-core CPU, preferably 10th generation or newer
• Internal dependencies
  • Programming languages: C++ (for NS-3), Python 3 (analysis scripts), Bash
  • Build tools: GNU Make, g++
  • Libraries: Standard NS-3 modules
• External dependencies
  • NS3.41
  • XDP FRER implementation from Ericsson Research Lab
  • Linux network namespaces

Precautions

This setup is CPU-intensive. To avoid inaccurate results or system overload:

• Run each NS-3 instance on a different core (e.g., using taskset)
• Avoid 100% CPU usage by doing any of following:
  • Reducing the outside traffic data rate (ping rate in our case)
  • Disabling .pcap packet tracing in NS-3
  • Using larger packet sizes and lower traffic rates (inside NS-3)
• Close all unnecessary apps (e.g., browsers, editors)

How to install it

No pre-built binaries are shipped. Follow the NS-3 installation instructions and XDP FRER setup from their respective sources.

How to build it

Step 1: Prepare NS-3 Instances

From Ns-3 folder copy WLAN1.cc and WLAN2.cc into each NS-3 instance's scratch/ directory:

'/your_path/Ns3-41_1/ns-3.41/scratch/WLAN1.cc'
'/your_path/Ns3-41_2/ns-3.41/scratch/WLAN2.cc'

Step 2: Run NS-3 in Parallel (on Separate Cores)

Open two terminal windows and run the following:

Terminal 1

taskset -c 1 ./ns3 run --enable-sudo scratch/tap-wifi-dumbbell

Terminal 2

taskset -c 3 ./ns3 run --enable-sudo scratch/tap-wifi-dumbbell

This launches both NS-3 simulations. Each will run for several hours.

Step 3: Set Up FRER Script

Copy Integration.sh from the FRER folder into the test/ directory of your XDP/FRER setup.

Step 4: Run FRER

Open a third terminal:

sudo su
cd /path/to/frer/test

source Integration.sh

Step 5: Send Dummy Traffic

Open a fourth terminal to start traffic from the talker namespace:

sudo ip netns exec talker bash
ping -D -i 0.01 -s 1400 192.168.62.12 | tee ping_output.txt

This sends 1400B packets every 10ms to the listener. You can: Verify this in Wireshark on the listener side

Observe channel occupancy in WLAN1Occupancy.txt and WLAN2Occupancy.txt generated by NS-3

📂 Outputs ping_output.txt: Shows real-time ping statistics

channel occupancy: Captures channel utilization in NS-3

Technical description

Figure 1: System architecture for FRER testbed, Different colour schemes show different components

This project integrates multiple components to evaluate the IEEE 802.1CB Frame Replication and Elimination for Reliability (FRER) standard. It combines:

• XDP/BPF-based FRER implementation by Ericsson Research Lab (available online)
• NS-3, an open-source network simulator
• Linux containers/namespaces
• Goal is to run dummy traffic over a FRER switch, which:
  • Replicates traffic over two links
  • Receives traffic via a Wireless LAN (simulated in NS-3)
  • The setup is extendable to real hardware and other traffic types and other networks (WLAN, 5G, Ethernet — as supported by NS-3)

Source

This code has been developed within the research / innovation project 5GSmartFact. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement ID 956670. This project started on 1 March 2021 and will end on 31 December 2025, funded under H2020-EU.1.3.1 of the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme.
More information about the grant at https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/956670

Copyright

This code has been developed by Fundació Privada Internet i Innovació Digital a Catalunya (i2CAT). i2CAT is a non-profit research and innovation centre that promotes mission-driven knowledge to solve business challenges, co-create solutions with a transformative impact, empower citizens through open and participative digital social innovation with territorial capillarity, and promote pioneering and strategic initiatives. i2CAT aims to transfer research project results to private companies in order to create social and economic impact via the out-licensing of intellectual property and the creation of spin-offs. Find more information of i2CAT projects and IP rights at https://i2cat.net/tech-transfer/

License

This code is licensed under the terms Affero GPL v3. Information about the license can be located at https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html.

Attribution Notice

This work uses third-party components that are attributed as follows:

• Unmodified version of NS-3.41 — Copyright © 2006–2025 The ns-3 project — licensed under GPL v2
• Unmodified/modified version of XDP FRER implementation — Copyright © 2024 Ericsson Research — licensed under BSD 2-Clause License