Reconfigurable Networking Hardware: A Classroom Tool

Abstract

We present an educational platform for teaching the design, debugging and deployment of real networking equipment in the operational Internet. The emphasis of our work is on teaching and, therefore, on providing an environment that is flexible, robust, low cost and easy to use. The platform is built around 'NetFPGAs'-custom boards containing eight Ethernet ports and two FPGAs. NetFPGA boards, when used with VNS (Virtual Network System-another tool we have developed), can be integrated into dynamically configurable network topologies reachable from the Internet. VNS enables a user-space process running on any remote computer to function as a system controller for the NetFPGA boards. NetFPGA and VNS are used at Stanford in a graduate level networking course to teach router implementation in hardware and software.