p2psim: Roll Your Own P2P Protocol

Anonymous Coward writes "p2psim is a free, multi-threaded, discrete event simulator developed at MIT to evaluate and investigate p2p protocols. You can quite easily add your own p2p protocol and compare it with others to make sure it runs well before you write the real thing. p2psim runs in Linux and FreeBSD."

Comments

Interesting parallel

[TheBrownShow]

Hmmm, both p2p and "rolling your own" are two things that people could make a lot of money off of if they just made it legal :-)

Re:Interesting parallel

[blankinthefill]

I don't think I have ever seen or read anything that states that p2p is not legal. Maybe I'm just way behind the times, but it was my understanding that p2p itself is legal, it's what the network is used for that is illegal.

They need to implement older protos

[Zanek]

They need to implement older protocols like Gnutella's and Fasttracks.
It would be interesting to see if there simulator comes close to real world performance of these networks after that !
Yay, we have networks simulating networks. Kazaa Reloaded !

How complete is it?

[DJProtoss]

I mean, does it contain a simulated RIAA that will come and sue you for distribution of copyrighted simulated material?

Real world problems?

[Chris_Jefferson]

I've seen this program a short while ago, so feel I can comment :)

While it is a good idea, and can be worked on it does have some small problems, mainly that it isn't quite "dirty" enough. It tends to believe people will behave better than you'd expect them to, not be evil leechers and also not have very dodgy net connections which go up and down every 10 minutes (which to be fair happens to alot of people on ADSL and such like, their uploads get saturated and all their download connections drop because their ACKs aren't getting out)

Having said that, this is a good program, and I hope will be improved as one of the hardest parts about p2p networks is keeping up a good solid network without it taking up a significant proportion of the network, and nowadays few people want to risk running a server if they can avoid it...

P2P Simulation

[ospirata]

Does p2psim simulates RIAA suing you? This would be the "de facto" p2p simulator.

What about the cost?

[the real darkskye]

Do you have to pay a virtual SCO for every virtual linux node on the virutal network?

Its a virtual post, but I have karma to burn off.

Re:Here's an idea

[SkArcher]

Patience grasshopper, such is inevitable, but it will take some time

Look at the english railways - for a long time, seperate companies used their own parallel rail network, often running different gage track (different width) and having to step around one anothers infrastructure, creating clumsy and non user friendly railway stations and services.

Eventually rail regulation came in, standardising all rail networks to one standard gage, allowing rolling stock and engines to work on any rail companies track and making the whole exercise better for customers and more profitable for the companies.

Sooner or later, p2p filesharing (and maybe chat client) protocol will become standardised, and it will simply be a matter of which piece of software you use to connect to a complete network.

Mind you, it'll probably be the one without any advertsising, and will lead to the end of civilisation as the marketing droids know it, but some sacrifices must be made for the good of the internet :)

Wow! Look at that, a transport analogy for the internet and computers that isn't about cars! Thats got to be a first :)