netnscli

NetNSCLI is a lightweight Go-based CLI tool, built with Cobra, designed to create and manage local network testbeds effortlessly from YAML configurations.

It is still a work in progress, and contributions are welcome!

Installation

To build the netnscli tool, use the following command:

make build

This will create the binary, which can be found in the ./bin directory.

Usage

Once built, you can use netnscli to create and manage your local network testbeds.

netncli

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netnscli creates and manages local network testbed

Usage:
  netnscli [flags]
  netnscli [command]

Available Commands:
  completion  Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
  create      Create a local network testbed
  delete      Delete a local network testbed
  help        Help about any command
  script      Script creates a script from a yaml configuration file for a local network testbed

Flags:
  -h, --help   help for netnscli

Use "netnscli [command] --help" for more information about a command.

Example Commands

Create a Testbed

To create a network testbed from a YAML file:

sudo ./bin/netnscli create -f samples/yamls/test_ipv4_simple.yaml

To verify that the network namespace was created, use:

ip netns

Or to check the interface links in a specific namespace:

sudo ip netns exec ns1 ip link

Delete the Testbed

To delete the testbed, run:

sudo ./bin/netnscli delete -f samples/yamls/test_ipv4_simple.yaml

Generate a Script from YAML

If you can’t run netnscli on a node but have a well-structured YAML configuration file, you can use the script command to generate an equivalent shell script for setting up the testbed:

./bin/netnscli script -f samples/yamls/test_ipv4_simple.yaml

The generated script can be used locally to set up the testbed manually.

Notes

This project started as an experiment to explore Go and the netlink and netns libraries, with the goal of creating a simpler, more structured way to create local testbeds for networking experiments.

Planned features include adding macvlan support and more commands. If you're interested, check out the TODOs in the code.

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