[comp.edu] Network simulation for teaching?

morgan@jessica.stanford.edu (RL "Bob" Morgan) (07/06/88)

I am preparing a class in Computer Networking for a group of students
at an industrial site.  I'm comfortable with deluging them with lots
of reading and lecture, but they're expecting some lab work as well.
It was said that they would like to "write a server."  I've taught
this material to undergrads before, and have observed that writing a
simple client (like a UDP echo client) from scratch can be challenging
enough.  The rub in this case is that the only machine to work with
for class purposes is *not* networked, apparently for security
reasons.

So: does anyone have any sort of network simulation code that would
allow students to observe/fiddle with/write network-like code on a
single machine?  It's running a BSD/Unix variant.  (How I can get the
code onto the machine is another story . . .).

Thanks,

- RL "Bob Morgan

ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (07/06/88)

One can write network applications local to a single BSD machine.
Just use the loopback interface and address (usually 127.0.0.1).

-Ron