Roadmap

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This page is a brief summary of current development activities for ns-2. If you want to participate in any stages of the below development activities, please email the contacts listed below, or the ns-developers list.

Additional information is found at the Developer Information page.

Note: ns-2 is being only lightly maintained at present due to the development work on ns-3. ns-3 is actively maintained and has been making releases since mid-2008. However, if you would like to help maintain some ns-2 code in the future (and accelerate the pace of ns-2 and related package development), please contact Tom Henderson.

Release schedule

Update: ns-2.35 was released on Nov. 4, 2011. This page will be revised once ns-2.36 plans are started.

ns-2.34 was released on June 17, 2009. The next ns-2 (ns-2.35) release is planned for October 2011. The main changes with respect to ns-2.34 will be moving to the Tcl/Tk 8.5-series, updating the code for newer compilers and Linux distributions, and fixing some portability issues. There are also several new models or model updates.

The following list of items has been worked on recently in preparing for the release:

System or build issues

• update otcl, tclcl, nam to support Tcl/Tk 8.5 version (merged) This support has been merged but it led to the following two issues:
  • Bug: inconsistent integer behavior across Tcl versions impacts ns-2 addresses
  • Bug (patch wanted): when system has both Tcl8.4 and 8.5 installed, autoconf scripts can pick up pieces of each
• Fix Cygwin-1.7.1 upgrade issues (Release Candidate 2 and later should be tested for this)
  • Sidney Doria has pointed out that it also works for Cygwin-1.5.x; need to confirm
• Bug (patch wanted): Fix make depend in ns-2
• Bug (patch wanted): ns-2 build/validation failing with --enable-debug option
• Bug (needs confirmed): Verify build/validation with -DDEBUG enabled (WONTFIX: conflicts with TCP Linux port (tcp/tcp-linux.h:64:1: error: "DEBUG" redefined); DDEBUG not part of standard
• Maxime de Roucy's Wextra warning fix (posted 9 Feb) (WONTFIX for this release; raising errors in tcp/linux code which I'd rather not touch)
• Bug (patch wanted): tclcl hardcodes the Tcl patchlevel, which causes difficulty for packaged versions of ns-2 to coexist with Tcl/Tk package upgrades. This is mainly an issue with packaged versions for Linux distributions, not for the source-based releases.

Model upgrades or additions

• updates to ns-2 SCTP module (already merged)
• PUMA multicast from Sidney Doria (posted at http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2010-February/007409.html)
• New DCCP patches from Sidney Doria (http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2010-February/007413.html)
• Updates to TMix for one-way TCP (in Sourceforge tracker)
• M-DART routing protocol from Marcello Caleffi (http://mailman.isi.edu/pipermail/ns-developers/2010-March/007631.html)

Bug fixes (for models) pending

• TCP size of transfer increases when FIN lost (in tracker)
• TCP fixes from Michele Weigle's group (in Sourceforge tracker)
• 802.15.4 bug
• TCP Sack bug (unconfirmed)
• TCP DelAckSink bug
• SCTP reports error, unusable.
• Inconsistent behaviour in passing traffic to agents

Bug tracker

Bugs: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=149743&atid=775392

Patches: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=149743&atid=775394

Current release snapshots

Please test the following release candidates and provide feedback (or patches) to ns-developers@isi.edu.

Latest release candidates posted October 2011:

• otcl-1.14-RC3
• tclcl-1.20-RC3
• ns-2.35-RC10
• nam-1.15-RC4
• ns-allinone-2.35-RC10 (the ns-2 allinone package with integrated build script)

Test results

ns-allinone-2.35-RC9 is mainly being tested on these systems:

• Linux Ubuntu 10.04.3 (LTS) x86_64, Ubuntu 11.04 (i386)
• Fedora Core 15 (i386)
• OS X 10.6.2 Snow Leopard Intel x86

The ns-allinone-2.35-RC7 package installs on these platforms:

• Ubuntu Karmic i386
• Fedora Core 12 i386/x86_64
• Ubuntu 8.04 LTS x86_64
• Cygwin 1.7.5 for Windows XP 32-bit
• OS X 10.6.2 Snow Leopard Intel x86
• OS X 10.4.9 powerpc Xcode 2.4.1 gcc-4.0.1

The main supported platforms by the project are Linux (32- and 64-bit), OS X (ppc and Intel), and Windows (via cygwin).

Other platforms (e.g. Solaris) have historically been supported by external maintainers.

Code proposals under review

See above Roadmap (PUMA, DCCP and M-DART contributions).