26 Understand the working of basic networking
commands (Ping, Route Add/Delete/Print,
ACL)
26.1 Theory
NetSim allows users to interact with the simulation at runtime via a socket or through a file. User
Interactions make simulation more realistic by allowing command execution to view/modify
certain device parameters during runtime.
26.1.1 Ping Command
The ping command is one of the most often used networking utilities for troubleshooting
network problems.
You can use the ping command to test the availability of a networking device (usually a
computer) on a network
When you ping a device, you send that device a short message, which it then sends back
(the echo)
If you receive a reply then the device is in the Network, if you do not, then the device is
faulty, disconnected, switched off, or incorrectly configured.
26.1.2 Route Commands
You can use the route commands to view, add and delete routes in IP routing tables.
route print: In order to view the entire contents of the IP routing table.
route delete: In order to delete all routes in the IP routing table.
route add: In order to add a static TCP/IP route to the IP routing table.
26.1.3 ACL Configuration
Routers provide basic traffic filtering capabilities, such as blocking the Internet traffic with
access control lists (ACLs). An ACL is a sequential list of Permit or Deny statements that apply
to addresses or upper-layer protocols. These lists tell the router what types of packets to:
PERMIT or DENY. When using an access-list to filter traffic, a PERMIT statement is used to
“allow” traffic, while a DENY statement is used to “block” traffic.
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26.2 Network setup
Open NetSim and click Examples > Experiments > Basic-networking-commands-Ping-
Route-Add/Delete/Print-and-ACL > Sample-1 as shown below Figure 26-1.
Figure 26-1: Experiments List
NetSim UI displays the configuration file corresponding to this experiment as shown below
Figure 26-2.
Figure 26-2: Network topology in the sample scenario
26.3 Procedure
The following set of procedures were done to generate this sample:
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Step 1: A network scenario is designed in NetSim GUI comprising of 2 Wired Nodes and 3
Routers in the “Internetworks” Network Library.
Step 2: In the Network Layer properties of Wired Node 1, “ICMP Status” is set as TRUE.
Similarly, ICMP Status is set as TRUE for all the devices as shown Figure 26-3.
Figure 26-3: Network Layer properties of Wired Node 1
Step 3: In the General properties of Wired Node 1, Wireshark Capture is set as Online.
Step 4: Right click on the Application Flow App1 CBR and select Properties or click on the
Application icon present in the top ribbon/toolbar.
A CBR Application is generated from Wired Node 1 i.e. Source to Wired Node 2 i.e. Destination
with Packet Size remaining 1460Bytes and Inter Arrival Time remaining 233.6µs. Transport
Protocol is set to UDP.
Additionally, the “Start Time(s)” parameter is set to 30, while configuring the application. This
time is usually set to be greater than the time taken for OSPF Convergence (i.e., Exchange of
OSPF information between all the routers), and it increases as the size of the network
increases.
Step 5: Packet Trace is enabled in NetSim GUI. At the end of the simulation, a very large .csv
file is containing all the packet information is available for the users to perform packet level
analysis. Plots are enabled in NetSim GUI.
Step 6: Click on Run Simulation. Simulation Time is set to 300 Seconds and in the Runtime
Interaction tab Figure 26-4, Interactive Simulation is set to True.
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Figure 26-4: Runtime Interaction window
NOTE: It is recommended to specify a longer simulation time to ensure that there is sufficient time for the
user to execute the various commands and see the effect of that before the Simulation ends.
Click on Accept and then click on OK.
Simulation (NetSimCore.exe) will start running and will display a message “waiting for
first client to connect” as shown below Figure 26-5
Figure 26-5: Waiting for first client to connect
Go back to the network scenario. Click on “Display Settings” in the top ribbon/toolbar
and select the “Device IP” checkbox inorder to display the IP address of all the devices.
Now, Right click on Router 3 or any other Router and select “NetSim Console” option as
shown Figure 26-6.
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Figure 26-6: Select NetSim Console
Now Client (NetSimCLI.exe) will start running and it will try to establish a
connection with NetSimCore.exe. After the connection is established, the following
will be displayed Figure 26-7.
Figure 26-7: Connection established
After this the command line interface can be used to execute all the supported commands.
26.4 Network Commands
26.4.1 Ping Command
You can use the ping command with an IP address or Device name.
ICMP_Status should be set as True in all nodes for ping to work.
Ping <IP address> e.g. ping 11.4.1.2
Ping <Node Name> e.g. ping Wired_Node_2
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Figure 26-8: Pinging Wired_Node_2
26.4.2 Route Commands
In order to view the entire contents of the IP routing table, use following command route
print
route print
Figure 26-9: IP routing table
You’ll see the routing table entries with network destinations and the gateways to which
packets are forwarded, when they are headed to that destination. Unless you’ve already
added static routes to the table, everything you see here is dynamically generated.
In order to delete a route in the IP routing table you’ll type a command using the following
syntax
route delete destination_network
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So, to delete the route with destination network 11.5.1.2, all we’d have to do is type this
command.
route delete 11.5.1.2
To check whether route has been deleted or not check again using route print command.
To add a static route to the table, you will type a command using the following syntax.
route ADD destination_network MASK subnet_mask gateway_ip metric_cost interface
So, for example, if you wanted to add a route specifying that all traffic bound for the
11.5.1.2 subnet went to a gateway at 11.5.1.1
route ADD 11.5.1.2 MASK 255.255.0.0 11.5.1.1 METRIC 100 IF 2
If you were to use the route print command to look at the table now, you’d see your new
static route.
Figure 26-10: Route delete/ Route add
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NOTE: Entry added in IP table by routing protocol continuously gets updated. If a user tries to remove a
route via route delete command, there is always a chance that routing protocol will re-enter this entry again.
Users can use ACL / Static route to override the routing protocol entry if required.
26.4.3 ACL Configuration
Commands to configure ACL
To view ACL syntax: acl print
Before using ACL, we must first verify whether ACL option enabled. A common way to
enable ACL is to use command: ACL Enable
Enter configuration mode of ACL: aclconfig
To view ACL Table: Print
To exit from ACL configuration: exit
To disable ACL: ACL Disable (use this command after exit from ACL Configuration)
To view ACL usage syntax use: acl print
[PERMIT, DENY] [INBOUND, OUTBOUND, BOTH] PROTO SRC DEST SPORT DPORT IFID
26.4.4 Step to Configure ACL
To create a new rule in the ACL use command as shown below to block UDP packet in
Interface 2 and Interface 3 of Router 3.
Application properties Transport Protocol UDP as shown Figure 26-11.
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Figure 26-11: Application properties window
Use the command as follows Figure 26-12.
NetSim>acl enable
ACL is enable
NetSim>aclconfig
ROUTER_3/ACLCONFIG>acl print
Usage: [PERMIT, DENY] [INBOUND, OUTBOUND, BOTH] PROTO SRC DEST SPORT
DPORT IFID
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ROUTER_3/ACLCONFIG>DENY BOTH UDP ANY ANY 0 0 2
OK!
ROUTER_3/ACLCONFIG>DENY BOTH UDP ANY ANY 0 0 3
OK!
ROUTER_3/ACLCONFIG>print
DENY BOTH UDP ANY/0 ANY/0 0 0 2
DENY BOTH UDP ANY/0 ANY/0 0 0 3
ROUTER_3/ACLCONFIG>exit
NetSim>acl disable
ACL is disable
NetSim>
Figure 26-12: ACL Configuration command
26.4.5 Ping Command Results
Go to the Results Dashboard and click on “Open Packet Trace” option present in the Left-
Hand-Side of the window and do the following:
Filter Control Packet Type/App Name to ICMP EchoRequest and ICMP EchoReply as shown
Figure 26-13.
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Figure 26-13: Packet Trace - ICMP Control Packets
In Wireshark, apply filter as ICMP. we can see the ping request and reply packets in Wireshark
as shown Figure 26-14.
Figure 26-14: ICMP Control packets in Wireshark
26.4.6 ACL Results
The impact of ACL rule applied over the simulation traffic can be observed in the IP Metrics
Table in the simulation results window. In Router 3, the number of packets blocked by firewall
has been shown below Figure 26-15.
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Figure 26-15: IP Metrics Table in result window
NOTE: Number of packets blocked may vary based on the time at which ACL is configured.
Users can also observe this in Packet Animation before and after the Packets are blocked as
shown below Figure 26-16/Figure 26-17.
Figure 26-16: In Animation Window before applying ACL rules see the packet flow
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Figure 26-17: In Animation Window after applying ACL rules see the packet flow
Check Packet animation window whether packets has been blocked in Router_3 or not
after entering ACL command to deny UDP traffic.
Before applying ACL rule there is packet flow from Wired_Node_1 to Wired_Node_2
After applying ACL rule Packet flows up to Router_3 only.
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