Welcome to the niab (Network In A Box) homepage.

niab is a network simulator.  niab creates a network inside your computer by:

• Generating a virtual network of layer 2 links inside the host machine.
• Connecting network nodes (UML processes) to the virtual network.

niab is useful for:                                 

• Application and network configuration, operation and support training.
• Application and network design verification (Proof of Concept)
• Having great fun whilst learning about networking in general and linux configuration in detail.

niab networks are made up of links and nodes.  A node can be an email server, a web server, a router, a firewall, etc, etc ....  The network topology can be anything you like.  The size of the network is only constrained by the performance of your host system.

niab comes with 5 tutorial labs:

• demo - simple demonstration lab.
• ospf - OSPF tutorial lab.
• bgp - BGP tutorial lab.
• ent1 - Enterprise tutorial lab.
• isp1 - ISP tutorial lab.

Creating your own labs, or modifing existing labs is quick and easy.

niab can be run under any Linux distribution.  Installation instructions can be found in the niab-how-to.  niab software can be downloaded from here.