Wextool aims to let experimenters set up, run and analyze the results
of wireless experiments. It is a flexible, scalable and Open-Source
tool that covers all the experimentation steps, from the definition
of the experiment scenario, to the generation, storage and analysis of
results.
Wextool was developed as part of the PLECS initiative, an INRIA's ADT
(Action de Développement Technologique) driven by the PLANETE
Project-Team.
Wextool in a nutshell
Basically,
a wireless experimentation with Wextool is composed of four different
steps: First, you have to create (or describe) the experimentation
scenario, by specifying the layout, the nodes, the functions and the
actions to perform within the experimentation. Second, the
experimentation is run at the time specified in the
experimentation scenario. During the run, wireless probes are used to
collect data traces and to characterize the environment. Third, when
the experimentation phase is over, the different data traces are
filtered, synchronized, and the result is inserted within a database. Fourth, the data analysis phase can start and the results can be plotted and stored.
In the first step, the experimentation scenario is described using the xml format. The xml file containing the Layout
definition, the Node configuration and the experimentation description is stored on the Wextool site.
In the second step, the experimentation scenario is executed. Wextool reads the experimentation scenario and
schedules the actions to be run on the different nodes involved in the experimentation.
Once the experiment is complete, Wextool inserts the data that has
been captured during the experiment into a database, performing merging and synchronization of the different data traces.
Afterwards, Wextool allows to filter, analyse and extract statistics from the database and also to generate graphs along with standard output files.
Finally, filtered packet logs, statistics and results from the experiment can be stored within a database.
The objective is to save enough information in order to possibly
reproduce the same experimentation with similar network conditions and
possibly at different places by different researchers.
Wextool
is easily extensible. Indeed, new
protocols and corresponding insertion/extraction
modules can be added using simple rules.
Licencing:
Wextool is free software, provided under the GNU GPLv2 license and is publicly available for research, development, and use.
Related papers: D.
Dujovne, T. Turletti, W. Dabbous, "Experimental Methodology for Real Overlays", Real Overlays And Distributed Systems (ROADS)
Workshop, Warsaw, Poland, July 11-12 2007, also available as the INRIA Research Report No RR-6667 at http://hal.inria.fr/inria-00326400/en/.
A short description of Wextool is available here.
Very basic slides of Wextool can be downloaded here.
First release: wextool-1.0 (November 7, 2008): sources (client, server) and rpm for FC7/8/9.
If you have Mercurial
already installed, you can also try "hg clone http://freehg.org/wextool/"
Send any questions or requests to: mailto://wextool-dev@sophia.inria.fr