OpenSN: An Open Source Library for Emulating LEO Satellite Networks

TL;DR

OpenSN is an open source, container-based library for efficiently emulating large-scale LEO satellite networks, enabling scalable and reproducible research with significant performance improvements.

Contribution

OpenSN introduces a scalable, efficient, and extensible container-based emulation framework for LEO satellite networks, surpassing existing tools in speed and flexibility.

Findings

Constructs mega-constellations 5X-10X faster than StarryNet

Updates link state 2X-4X faster than LeoEM

Successfully emulates 4408 satellites in a five-shell Starlink constellation

Abstract

Low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellations (e.g., Starlink) are becoming a necessary component of future Internet. There have been increasing studies on LEO satellite networking. It is a crucial problem how to evaluate these studies in a systematic and reproducible manner. In this paper, we present OpenSN, i.e., an open source library for emulating large-scale satellite network (SN). Different from Mininet-based SN emulators (e.g., LeoEM), OpenSN adopts container-based virtualization, thus allows for running distributed routing software on each node, and can achieve horizontal scalability via flexible multi-machine extension. Compared to other container-based SN emulators (e.g., StarryNet), OpenSN streamlines the interaction with Docker command line interface and significantly reduces unnecessary operations of creating virtual links. These modifications improve emulation efficiency and vertical scalability on a single machine. Furthermore, OpenSN separates user-defined configuration from container network management via a Key-Value Database that records the necessary information for SN emulation. Such a separation architecture enhances the function extensibility. To sum up, OpenSN exhibits advantages in efficiency, scalability, and extensibility, thus is a valuable open source library that empowers research on LEO satellite networking. Experiment results show that OpenSN constructs mega-constellations 5X-10X faster than StarryNet, and updates link state 2X-4X faster than LeoEM. We also verify the scalability of OpenSN by successfully emulating the five-shell Starlink constellation with a total of 4408 satellites.