ONL NPR Tutorial

The ONL NPR Tutorial

NPR Tutorial >> Overview

TOC

The Tutorial Web Pages

The Remote Laboratory Interface (RLI) attempts to make it simple to do simple experiments. However, it does assume that the user has some basic knowledge of networking concepts such as IP addressing. These tutorial pages are aimed at describing how to use the RLI and the ONL testbed. At an implementation level, the system has lots of interacting parts. But the RLI hides much of this complexity or presents it in layers of menus.

These tutorial pages follow the same sequence as those for the older NSP routers. It begins with an overview of the ONL testbed and then describes the basic features of the RLI such as how to configure and monitor a network experiment. Then, it describes more advanced features such as filters and plugins. Near the end, is the Summary Information section that regular users might find useful as a reference guide. The summary also contains many details that are used by more advanced users. Following the summary information is the Examples section that contains the recipes associated with each of the main tutorial sections. These recipes provide step-by-step instructions for reproducing examples that we have given at various conferences and demonstrate the basic features of the RLI. Unlike recipes, they also show you what the result should be!

The tutorial pages can be used in several ways, but the three most common approaches are:

Sequentially go through the pages.
Jump to the Examples section and follow the recipes.
Combine the first two approaches.

Each Web page contains navigation buttons at the top and bottom of the page that allow you to go forward, backward, back to the current index, back to the preceding index or to the table of contents (TOC). The easiest way to sequentially move through the tutorial pages is to select the forward buttons in the upper right or lower right corners of the page. Alternatively, you can choose to start with the Examples section. But unlike the main part of the tutorial, these pages do not explain the concepts. The third approach (mixing the first two) might be useful to a non-beginner when the concepts embodied in the RLI seem to correspond to their view of networking concepts.

If you need help, look for help links in the sidebar of the ONL web page. Also, there is a New Window? link near the top of each content page that can be used to open up a new tutorial window that is free of the sidebar.

Revised: Thu, July 31, 2008

NPR Tutorial >> Overview	TOC