Mininet in Docker (Rocky Linux)

A modern, RHEL-flavored Docker image for Mininet.

Highlights

• Mininet 2.3.1b4, OpenvSwitch 3.1.0 and OpenFlow 1.0.
• Based on Rocky Linux 8, a RHEL clone.
• Systemd inside, for better support of OpenvSwitch.

Usage

Podman is preferred as it has better support for Systemd.

podman build -t mininet:rocky-8 .

podman run -d --privileged \
           --systemd true \
           -v /lib/modules:/lib/modules:ro \
           mininet:rocky-8 /usr/sbin/init

podman exec -it <container_id> /bin/bash

Then you can run Mininet commands as usual.

mn --test pingall

Note: We have built-in support for Systemd in this image and it has to be PID 1 in the container. So DO NOT alter the entrypoint. Use exec instead.

Customization

It should be easy to extend the Dockerfile to support Rocky Linux 9 / Fedora 32+.