Integration of linux TCP implementation and simulation: Verification and validation

Network simulation is one of the most important and flexible methods in studying protocol since it allows virtually endless numbers of network environments to be simulated and protocol of interest to be studied without requiring real-world complicated and costly experiment. However, depending on researchers, protocol can be implemented in different ways and different implementations may result in the outcomes that do not truly reflect the dynamics of the protocol. TCP, as the most dominant protocol in the Internet on which WWW and FTP are based, has been studied extensively in order to assess its performance when operating in the emerging Next Generation Network and the next generation Internet. In addition, the performance of TCP can adversely be affected by network characteristics such as network policy, transmission error, available bandwidth and propagation delay. To accurately capture the interaction of TCP with different networks and new technologies, a combination of a real-world TCP and a network simulation is necessary. This paper presents an integration of the existing Linux TCP implementation into a network simulator called INET. In addition, the integrated Linux TCP are verified and validated to assure its validity. The results prove that the integrated Linux TCP shows reasonable and consistent behaviors with respect to real-world Linux TCP.