0

For testing reasons I need to simulate a set up with a few up to a dozen machines that can fail anytime in a LAN (or WAN) that may fail too.

How would you do it using free/open software? Is there any virtualization solution that allows to kill/reboot machines and bring online/offline (virtually) their connections?

Thank you.

Qualsiasi
  • 51
  • 2
  • 6

1 Answers1

0

You could probably start with something like Oracle VirtualBox, running a dozen workstation VMs.

While you are running your tests, you can programatically pause/resume your VMs from the command line to simulate system hangs (e.g. for a Windows VirtualBox install):

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage list vms
"CentOS 6.4 (x86_64)" {fb99d1b3-9ff8-4149-9726-635e85996d34}

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage controlvm fb99d1b3-9ff8-4149-9726-
635e85996d34 pause

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage controlvm fb99d1b3-9ff8-4149-9726-
635e85996d34 resume

-- ab1

ab77
  • 841
  • 12
  • 14
  • That sounds good, I think with the command line you could also plug and unplug the virtual NICs. Do you have any advice on how I could set up complex network topologies? For example having a not fully connected network, and trying to simulate network splits, and so. – Qualsiasi Sep 19 '13 at 13:24
  • Yes, looks like you can control the link state of the NICs, using "setlinkstate" sub-command (http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html#vboxmanage-controlvm). Regarding your second point, if you are talking about physically multi-homed VMs (multiple vNICs), then it probably warrants a separate question as it is a bit more complicated. Cheers! – ab77 Sep 19 '13 at 16:55