IoTrain-Sim: IoT Training System Using the Cooja Network Simulator

IoTrain-Sim is an integrated training system that makes use of the Cooja network simulator and Contiki OS for IoT education and training purposes. The system provides training tutorials and ready-to-use simulations making it possible for learners to easily master the basics of IoT and IoT security. The included hands-on practice with simulated IoT devices helps learners get ready to implement real IoT applications in the future.

An overview of the architecture of IoTrain-Sim is provided in the figure below.

Training Process

Training activities that make use of IoTrain-Sim are typically conducted as illustrated next.

The training content currently provided with IoTrain-Sim is structured as shown below.

Setup

The following steps are necessary in order to set up IoTrain-Sim:

1. Download Instant Contiki: Instant Contiki is a virtual machine (VM) image provided by Contiki developers that contains all the necessary tools to run Cooja. The easiest way to get started with our system is to install it into the Instant Contiki VM. Use the link below to download the Instant Contiki 3.0 VM image (note that older VM versions are not compatible with the current IoTrain-Sim content). After downloading the archive, which has over 3 GB, unzip it and proceed to the next step.

   Instant Contiki 3.0 Repository

2. Install VMware Virtualization Software: The downloaded Instant Contiki file is a VMware virtual machine image, hence the VMware virtualization software is needed to run it. VMware Workstation Player (formerly VMware Player) is such a solution for Windows and Linux, and VMware Fusion is the equivalent for macOS. See the links below for download and license information.

   VMware Workstation Player for Windows/Linux
   VMware Fusion for macOS

3. Start Instant Contiki: In order to start Instant Contiki, use the VMware program to open the main VM image file (the one with extension .vmx) from the extracted Instant Contiki archive and power it on. Wait for the machine to boot up, then log in; the default password is "user", but for security reasons you should change it after the first login. According to the Contiki developers, it is necessary to prepare the submodules in the OS source code before being able to run Cooja. To do that, open a terminal in the Instant Contiki VM and run the following command:

   cd contiki && git submodule update --init && cd ..
   

4. Install IoTrain-Sim: To install IoTrain-Sim, from the Instant Contiki VM download the latest version of the software from the releases page on GitHub. The IoTrain-Sim code assumes that the archive will be extracted into the directory /home/user/iotrain-sim/. In case you use a different location, update accordingly the variable IOTRAIN_PATH in the file code/storyboard.py. Next, install the Python Tkinter toolkit used for the IoTrain-Sim GUI by running the command below:

   sudo apt-get install python-tk
   

Quick Start

In order to run IoTrain-Sim, use a terminal window in the Instant Contiki VM to execute the following command:

$ ./iotrain-sim/code/iotrain-sim.py

Once the training interface is displayed as shown in the screenshot below, we suggest that you select the menu entry System Introduction > IoTrain-Sim Overview for an introduction to IoTrain-Sim. To learn more about the available training content, and especially about how to add new training content to the IoTrain-Sim database, see the Training Content Guide that is also available in the distribution.

NOTE: In addition to the graphical user interface (GUI) above, the legacy command-line interface (CLI) can also be used by providing the option --cli when starting IoTrain-Sim.

References

For a research background regarding IoTrain-Sim, please refer to the following document:

• J. Wang, "IoT Training System Using the Cooja Network Simulator", Master's thesis, March 2019. https://hdl.handle.net/10119/15885

For a list of contributors to this project, check the file CONTRIBUTORS included with the source code.