qemu_mininet_ros_rolling_set_up.md

Note: These instructions are set up for using Qemu/KVM. If you have virtualbox installed, you cannot have kvm installed at the same time. It's possible to run mininet via the

Step 1: Download QEMU/KVM

  sudo apt-get -y -qq install \
                   kvmtool cloud-utils genisoimage qemu-kvm qemu-utils \
                   moreutils mtools

Step 2: Download mininet image

  mkdir mn_ws
  cd mn_ws
  wget https://github.com/mininet/mininet/releases/download/2.3.0/mininet-2.3.0-210211-ubuntu-20.04.1-legacy-server-amd64-ovf.zip

Step 3: Unpack and convert to qemu format

  unzip mininet-2.3.0-210211-ubuntu-20.04.1-legacy-server-amd64-ovf.zip
  qemu-img convert -p -f vmdk mininet-vm-x86_64.vmdk -O qcow2 mininet.qcow2

Step 4 Resize image (ROS has lots of dependencies)

  qemu-img resize mininet.qcow2 +30G

Step 5 Expand file system

We will need to enable nbd

  sudo modprobe nbd max_part=8
  sudo qemu-nbd --connect=/dev/nbd0 mininet.qcow2

Install gparted. Use it to expand the partition.

  sudo apt install gparted
  sudo gparted /dev/nbd0

Resize /dev/nbd0p2 to fill the space.

Then repeat and resize /dev/nbd0p5. Apply your changes.

Unmount the image.

sudo qemu-nbd --disconnect /dev/nbd0

We can now launch mininet.

Step 7 Attach local work space

It is assumed your local ros2 work space has the code checked out. To launch our vm we need only run the following (feel free to save to script).