Host machine requirements

The SR-SIM tool is a containerized solution that relies on CPU and memory resources shared with the host machine and other containers deployed on the host.

The SR-SIM can operate across multiple host machines as long as the containers have the required connectivity.

CPU

The SR-SIM is designed to run on an Intel x86 host CPU; the tool is not tested on machines powered by AMD. The SR-SIM will not boot on ARM CPUs.

Memory

The SR-SIM requires 2 GB minimum memory in order to boot. As line cards and functionality is added the memory requirements will grow. The platform matrix will provide the recommended minimum for the default router and card layouts for each device. These should be used as a guideline only. The memory requirements on the host system may vary.

Storage

The SR-SIM image is approximately 2 GB in size once uncompressed.

Each SR-SIM container requires a small amount of host machine storage for the container image itself.

Each SR-SIM also provides emulated cf1:, cf2:, and cf3: drives inside the emulated router. The content stored on these devices consumes the available space in the container. These devices can be specifically mounted to host directories, ephemeral volumes, or persistent volumes, as required.

To use a local storage location, or an ephemeral/persistent volume, mount it to one of the following locations in the container:

  • /cf1
  • /cf2
  • /cf3

Network Interface Cards

The SR-SIM does not rely on the presence of specific network interface cards (NICs) in the underlying host machine. Any NIC may be used, as long as it is supported by the container management system. The SR-SIM is not optimized for throughput performance.

Software requirements

This section describes the software requirements for the SR-SIM.

Host operating system

The SR-SIM does not rely on a specific host operating system (OS).

Due to the number of OSs (and versions) available, the SR-SIM containers are not tested against any specific host OS. The host OS may potentially interact with the container management system or the SR-SIM containers in a way that affects the optimal functioning of the SR-SIM container.

Container management systems

The following table lists the container management systems that are tested to work with the SR-SIM.

Table 1. Tested container management systems
Solution Tested version
Docker 28.2.2 (community)
Docker compose 2.36.2
Kubernetes (k3s) v1.32.5+k3s1
Kubernetes (minikube) 1.36.0
Containerlab 0.69