IDIT-SDN (v0.

1): Installation Guide

(for Linux 64 bits - Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS - April, 2023)
Gustavo N. Segura1 , Arsenia Chorti 2 , Cintia B. Margi3
1
Escuela de Ingeniería Eléctrica – Universidad de Costa Rica
Montes de Oca – San José – Costa Rica
2
ETIS UMR8051, CY Université, ENSEA, CNRS, F-95000, Cergy, France
3
Escola Politécnica – Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
gustavoalonso.nunez@ucr.ac.cr, arsenia.chorti@ensea.fr, cintia@usp.br

Contents

1 Introduction 2

2 Requirements 3
2.1 Obtain Contiki OS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 Obtain IDIT-SDN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3 Obtain the GCC toolchain for MSP430 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.4 Obtain Qt framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

3 IDIT-SDNcompilation 5
3.1 Compile enabled-nodes and controller-node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2 Compile controller-pc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

4 Simulating IDIT-SDN 7
4.1 Running controller-pc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2 Starting Cooja . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.3 Connecting controller-pc to controller-node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.4 Running Cooja Simulation using GUI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.5 Simulation using script (no GUI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1. Introduction
IDIT-SDN is an intrusion detection framework for Software Defined Wireless Sensor Net-
work (SDWSN). This tool is completely open and freely available, designed to be inde-
pendent of the operating system and its functions. Although, it is currently implemented
on IT-SDN v 0.41 [Alves et al. 2019, Alves et al. 2017]
IT-SDN comprises SDN-enabled WSN nodes developed under Contiki OS
[Dunkels et al. 2004]. We provide sample code for data generating nodes (named
enabled-nodes throughout the document) and sink-nodes. The controller is developed
in C and C++ with Qt (we call this software controller-pc). The controller-pc software
must connect to a WSN node for communicating with the other nodes in the network. The
node programmed with the interfacing software is called controller-node.
In order to compile and run IDIT-SDN nodes and controller, you need to follow
these steps (described in the next sections):
2. Obtain Contiki OS;
3. Obtain IDIT-SDN;
4. Obtain the GCC toolchain for MSP430;
5. Obtain Qt framework;
6. IDIT-SDNcompilation;
7. Simulating IDIT-SDN;

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2. Requirements
2.1. Obtain Contiki OS
Download Contiki release 3.0 available at https://github.com/contiki-os/
contiki/releases/tag/3.0
After downloading, place the contiki directory in the home folder
/home/USERNAME.
Alternatively, you can get Contiki release 3.0 in the command line, as follows:
$ cd /home/USERNAME
$ wget https://github.com/contiki-os/contiki/archive/3.0.zip
$ unzip 3.0.zip

You need to get MSPSim to emulate instruction level of MSP430 se-

ries micropocessor on Cooja (the Contiki Network Simulator). Download it
from https://github.com/contiki-os/mspsim and unpack it in directory
/home/USERNAME/contiki-3.0/tools/mspsim/.
To run Cooja, you will need Java JDK 8 as well as the ant build tool. If you need
to install them, use the following commands in a terminal.
~$ sudo apt-get install ant
~$ sudo apt-get update
~$ sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-set-default

Or you can try:

~$ sudo apt-get install ant
~$ sudo apt-get update
~$ sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk
~$ sudo update-alternatives --config java

To test if download and extraction succeeded, run the command ant run on
folder /home/USERNAME/contiki-3.0/tools/cooja:
~/contiki-3.0/tools/cooja$ ant run

If everything was installed correctly, it will start with a blue empty window (Cooja:
The Contiki Network Simulator) as shown in Figure 1.
You can get more information about Cooja at https://github.com/
contiki-os/contiki/wiki/An-Introduction-to-Cooja.

2.2. Obtain IDIT-SDN

Download the IDIT-SDN framework from https://github.com/gnunezucr/
idit-sdn
When downloaded, extract and place the directory on /home/USERNAME.

2.3. Obtain the GCC toolchain for MSP430

We are using MSP430-based platforms (such as Tmote) and thus the following packages
are needed: binutils-msp430, gcc-msp430, msp430-libc, msp430mcu
and mspdebug to compile and run enabled-nodes and controller-node developed to

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 Figure 1. Cooja execution interface.

ContikiOS.

You can run the following command to install all packages:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential binutils-msp430 gcc-msp430 msp430-libc
msp430mcu mspdebug

You can get more information about MSP430-gcc at https://github.com/

jlhonora/mspgcc-install.
If all previous steps succeed, you should be able to compile IT-SDN as instructed
in Section 3.1.

2.4. Obtain Qt framework

To compile and run the controller-pc software you need to download and install QT
framework with Qt 5.9 available at https://download.qt.io/archive/qt/5.
9/5.9.0/. Figure 2 shows Qt Creator interface.
You also need to install the package:
$ sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dev

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 Figure 2. Qt Creator opened.

3. IDIT-SDNcompilation
In the next sections, we describe how to compile and execute IDIT-SDN.

3.1. Compile enabled-nodes and controller-node

You should change the first line Contiki=... on the Makefile_enabled_node
and Makefile_controller_node, in folder idit-sdn/applications, to in-
dicate the path to reach Contiki source files, such as shown below:
CONTIKI=/home/USERNAME/contiki-3.0

The compilation script is located in the applications directory. Please, verify the
script has the appropriate permission to execute.
$ cd ~/idit-sdn/applications/
$ ./compile.sh

By default, the script compiles the code for the sky mote (TelosB mote). How-
ever, the target platform can be changed by typing its name as script parameter of the
compile.sh file. Example:
$ ./compile.sh PLATFORM

If compilation succeeded, you will see the size of the three firmwares (enabled-
node, sink-node and controller-node), as shown in Figure 3.

3.2. Compile controller-pc

Before compiling the controller-pc, you need to indicate Contiki path. To do
so, create a file named controller-pc.pro.contiki and save on folder
/home/USERNAME/idit-sdn/controller-server/controller-pc with
the following content:

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 Figure 3. Compiling enabled-node, sink-node and controller-node.

CONTIKI=/home/USERNAME/contiki-3.0

To compile and run controller-pc, open the Qt Cre-

ator and click on button [Open Project]. Navigate to the path
/home/USERNAME/idit-sdn/controller-server/controller-pc
and select the project controller-pc.pro.

You will see the Configure Project window, such as the one depicted in Figure 4).
Then, click on [Configure Project].

Figure 4. Configuring project kit to controller-pc.

Now you are ready to compile the controller-pc. Click on menu Build→Build All.

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4. Simulating IDIT-SDN
4.1. Running controller-pc
After compiling, click on menu Build→Run on Qt Creator to run controller-pc. You will
see the controller-pc window as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. First window for controller-pc.

4.2. Starting Cooja

Open a terminal window, go to the Cooja directory and then open Cooja as follows.
$ cd ~/contiki/tools/cooja/
$ ant run

After Cooja opened, go to the File menu and click Open simulation →
Browse. . . Navigate to /home/USERNAME/idit-sdn/simulation/ and open file
ITSDN_n36_s1_a1_3_GRID.csc, as shown in Figure 6 and Figure 6.

4.3. Connecting controller-pc to controller-node

Once Cooja simulation is up, you need to connect the controller-pc to controller-node. On
controller-pc window, verify the IP PORT is set on 60001 (Figure 5), then, click [Con-
nect] button. Once they are connected, the controller interface will change as depicted in
Figure 8.

4.4. Running Cooja Simulation using GUI

If the controller-pc is successfully connected to Cooja simulation, now you can click on
[Start] on Cooja to start, such as shown in Figure 9. The Mote output window con-
tains serial output from all nodes. IT-SDN nodes print messages to ease the computation
of network metrics and statistics, as well as messages regarding node status and mes-
sage transmission. These features can be activated by defining, respectively, the macros
SDN_METRIC or DEBUG_SDN in the application makefile.

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 Figure 6. Opening Cooja simulation.

Figure 7. Cooja simulation with 36 nodes.

4.5. Simulation using script (no GUI)

You can also use an script to run Cooja simulator backwards. This is useful for long
simulations and to run multiple replications in parallel. We provide an script that
works with the examples we include in the code folder, but it is also configurable.
To have a better understanding about how to use simulation through scripts in Cooja,
please check this site: https://github.com/contiki-os/contiki/wiki/

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 Figure 8. Connecting the controller-pc to controller-node.

Figure 9. Starting Cooja simulation.

Using-Cooja-Test-Scripts-to-Automate-Simulations
The script we provide is named as run_simulations.sh and
it is located in the folder /home/USERNAME/idit-sdn/simulation.
Before using the script, you should check the paths in the file
/home/USERNAME/idit-sdn/path_simulation.sh and set them accord-
ing to your user paths.
Then, you should create a copy of Contiki’s folder but changing its name to
contiki-3.01. If you want to run more than one simulation in parallel, you should

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create as many copies of Contiki’s folder as simulations you want. For example, if you
want to run three simulations in parallel, you should have something such as shown in
Figure 10.

Figure 10. Contiki’s folder replications

The parameters MIN_ITER and MAX_ITER defines the number of the first and
the last simulation. If you want 10 replications, you should set them as MIN_ITER=1
and MAX_ITER=10. Then, the parameter COOJA_INSTANCES defines the number of
simulations in parallel.
The parameters nodes_v and topologies defines the number of nodes and
the topology variation. For the examples we provide, the number of nodes is 36 and
there are two topologies: a1_1 and a1_3. However, you can create new simulations
environments (.csc files) following the same nomenclature and use this script without
changes. The parameter SIM_TIME_MS defines the simulation time in milliseconds.
The parameters in the script should look like shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11. Simulation script parameters

To run the simulations script you type the next commands:

$ cd ~/idit-sdn/simulation/
$ ./run_simulation.sh

The script will compile IT-SDN and controller server code, do the connection with
Cooja and start the simulation. If everything went well, you should see somehting like
shown in Figure 12.
The logs will be in in the folder /home/USERNAME/idit-sdn/simulation/results,
such as shown in Figure 13.

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 Figure 12. Simulation script parameters

Figure 13. Simulation script parameters

References
Alves, R. C. A., Oliveira, D., Segura, G. N., and Margi, C. B. (2017). IT-SDN: Improved
architecture for SDWSN. In XXXV Simpósio Brasileiro de Redes de Computadores.
Available at https://sites.google.com/usp.br/cintia/it-sdn.
Alves, R. C. A., Oliveira, D. A. G., Nunez Segura, G. A., and Margi, C. B. (2019). The
Cost of Software-Defining Things: A Scalability Study of Software-Defined Sensor
Networks. IEEE Access, 7:115093–115108.
Dunkels, A., Gronvall, B., and Voigt, T. (2004). Contiki - a lightweight and flexible
operating system for tiny networked sensors. In LCN ’04: Proceedings of the 29th
Annual IEEE International Conference on Local Computer Networks, pages 455–462,
Washington, DC, USA. IEEE Computer Society.

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