Article

The Clack graphical router: visualizing network software

Authors:

Nick McKeownAuthors Info & Claims

SoftVis '06: Proceedings of the 2006 ACM symposium on Software visualization

Pages 7 - 15

https://doi.org/10.1145/1148493.1148495

Published: 04 September 2006 Publication History

Abstract

We present Clack, a graphical environment for teaching students how Internet routers work and other core networking concepts. Clack is a router written as a Java Applet, and routes live network traffic in real-time. Students can look inside the router to see how packets are processed, and watch the dynamics of the queues. They can modify and enhance the router, making it handle packets as they wish. Clack provides multiple views of the operational router including the full network topology, the router's software components, and the packet-level view of traffic as it passes through the router. Clack's detailed visual interface to the software internals of a functioning router, as well as its ability to modify and observe live Internet traffic, provide a unique environment to aid in networking education.Over the last two years, Clack has been used in the classroom at six universities. Feedback from the students through anonymous, formal evaluations has been positive. In this paper we describe the goals and design of Clack as well as our experiences using it in the classroom.

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Cited By

Merino LKozlova ENierstrasz OWeiskopf D(2019)VISON: An Ontology-Based Approach for Software Visualization Tool Discoverability2019 Working Conference on Software Visualization (VISSOFT)10.1109/VISSOFT.2019.00014(45-55)Online publication date: Sep-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/VISSOFT.2019.00014
Lee KKim JMoon SDecker AEiselt KAlphonce CTims J(2015)An Educational Networking Framework for Full Layer Implementation and TestingProceedings of the 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/2676723.2677304(663-668)Online publication date: 24-Feb-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2676723.2677304
Karenos KPauw WLei H(2011)A Topic-Based Visualization Tool for Distributed Publish/Subscribe MessagingProceedings of the 2011 IEEE/IPSJ International Symposium on Applications and the Internet10.1109/SAINT.2011.19(65-74)Online publication date: 18-Jul-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/SAINT.2011.19
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

The Clack graphical router: visualizing network software
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
        Information science education

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

SoftVis '06: Proceedings of the 2006 ACM symposium on Software visualization

September 2006

199 pages

ISBN:1595934642

DOI:10.1145/1148493

General Chair:
Eileen Kraemer
The University of Georgia
,
Program Chairs:
Margaret Burnett
Oregon State University
,
Stephan Diehl
University Trier, Germany

Copyright © 2006 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 04 September 2006

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Cited By

Merino LKozlova ENierstrasz OWeiskopf D(2019)VISON: An Ontology-Based Approach for Software Visualization Tool Discoverability2019 Working Conference on Software Visualization (VISSOFT)10.1109/VISSOFT.2019.00014(45-55)Online publication date: Sep-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/VISSOFT.2019.00014
Lee KKim JMoon SDecker AEiselt KAlphonce CTims J(2015)An Educational Networking Framework for Full Layer Implementation and TestingProceedings of the 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/2676723.2677304(663-668)Online publication date: 24-Feb-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2676723.2677304
Karenos KPauw WLei H(2011)A Topic-Based Visualization Tool for Distributed Publish/Subscribe MessagingProceedings of the 2011 IEEE/IPSJ International Symposium on Applications and the Internet10.1109/SAINT.2011.19(65-74)Online publication date: 18-Jul-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/SAINT.2011.19
Marquardt NGross TCarpendale SGreenberg SCoelho MZigelbaum JIshii HJacob RMaes PPederson TShaer OWakkary R(2010)Revealing the invisibleProceedings of the fourth international conference on Tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction10.1145/1709886.1709896(41-48)Online publication date: 24-Jan-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1709886.1709896
Zhang ZZhang YHu YMao ZBush RBahl VWetherall DSavage SStoica I(2008)IspyProceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2008 conference on Data communication10.1145/1402958.1402996(327-338)Online publication date: 17-Aug-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1402958.1402996
Zhang ZZhang YHu YMao ZBush R(2008)IspyACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review10.1145/1402946.140299638:4(327-338)Online publication date: 17-Aug-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1402946.1402996

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