MIMIC Virtual Lab runs on
Notice that although MIMIC Simulator supports the other versions of Windows (95, 98, Me, NT SP 3), the limitations are too severe to run MIMIC Virtual Lab on them.
The following are some of the most common problems encountered on Windows, and their fixes:
On Windows NT, 2000, XP or Server 2003, you need to install MIMIC from a user account with Administrator privileges, since the install script needs write access to restricted parts of the Registry.
You also need to run MIMIC from an account with Administrator rights, since it uses special privileges to add additional IP addresses to the machine you are running on.
We recommend establishing a separate user account with Administrator privileges for running MIMIC. This strictly controls who has access to this functionality.
Due to pervasive security attacks against Windows systems connected to the Internet, it has become common to run a software firewall on recent versions of Windows.
MIMIC will coexist with a software firewall, provided that the firewall is configured to recognize MIMIC as a program allowed to access the network. MIMIC will, due to its very nature of simulating networked components, open network sockets and communicate with external applications (eg. network management applications, telnet clients, etc).
There are certain components of MIMIC that will access the Internet (eg. specific web sites to determine software updates, etc).
MIMIC creates a lot of small files for its simulations. This is handled efficiently on modern filesystems, such as NTFS and Unix file systems, On the other hand, the FAT (or FAT16) filesystem on all Windows 95 (and some Windows 98 or NT) systems is notoriously inefficient, and you will use 10 to 100 times more disk space on a FAT file system. (The FAT32 file system on Windows 98 is also inefficient, but it is acceptable.) To find out what file system you have installed on your Windows system, select the Properties dialog on your partition from the Windows Explorer.
MIMIC requires at least one operational network interface card (NIC). On Windows NT, 2000, XP or Server 2003, as on the Unix platforms, MIMIC dynamically assigns IP addresses when starting each agent instance.
If Windows detects that an IP address on one of its Network Interface Cards (NICs) conflicts with another system (duplicate IP address), then it tries to resolve this problem by shutting down the NIC and displays a message such as:
The System has detected an IP address conflict with another system on the network. The local interface has been disabled. More details are available in the system event log. Consult your network administrator to resolve the conflict.
You must not have duplicate IP addresses on a connected network, neither with MIMIC or otherwise.
NOTE: on Windows 2000, XP or Server 2003, the agent will not start and will print an error message in the Log.
Newer versions of Windows (Windows 2000 onwards) have a TCP/IP feature whereby it can sense if a NIC is actually connected to the network. By default, a NIC is disabled if it is not found to be on the network, which prevents agents from starting in MIMIC. There is a way to disable this behaviour so that you can work on standalone Windows machines. Attached is the Microsoft KB article on this topic... Please remember to make a copy of your registry before making any changes just to be on the safe side.
How to Disable Media Sense for TCP/IP in Windows 2000
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The information in this article applies to:
a.. Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
b.. Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
c.. Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
d.. Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
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SUMMARY
Windows 2000 contains the "Media Sensing" feature. You may use this feature
on a Windows 2000-based computer using Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) to detect whether or not your network
media is in a "link state". A "link state" is defined as the physical media
connecting or inserting itself on the network. For example, assuming a 10bt
or 100bt physical media, Ethernet network adapters and hubs typically have a
"link" light to indicate the current connection status. This is the same
condition in which Windows 2000 can detect a link. Whenever Windows 2000
detects a "down" state on the media, it removes the bound protocols from
that adapter until it is detected as "up" again. There may be situations
where you may not want your network adapter to detect this state, and you
can configure this by editing the registry.
NOTE: 10b2 or coaxial (RG-58) Ethernet cable is not a connection-based
media. Because of this, Windows 2000 does not attempt to detect a "connect"
state if this type of cabling is used.
MORE INFORMATION
WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that
may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot
guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor
can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.
For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys and
Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete
Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in
Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it.
If you are running Windows NT or Windows 2000, you should also update your
Emergency Repair Disk (ERD).
To prevent your network adapter from detecting the link state:
NOTE: NetBEUI and IPX do not recognize Media Sense.
1.. Use Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe) to view the following key in the
registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
Add the following registry value:
Value Name: DisableDHCPMediaSense
Data Type: REG_DWORD -Boolean
Value Data Range: 0, 1 (False, True) Default: 0 (False)
Description: This parameter controls DHCP Media Sense behavior. If you set
this value data to 1, DHCP, and even non-DHCP, clients ignore Media Sense
events from the interface. By default, Media Sense events trigger the DHCP
client to take an action, such as attempting to obtain a lease (when a
connect event occurs), or invalidating the interface and routes (when a
disconnect event occurs).
2.. Restart your computer.
NOTE: There are some side effects of disabling the "Media Sensing" feature.
For example, if you have a machine with two network adapters, and you have
the "Media Sensing" feature enabled, if one network adapter does not work,
it is unbound, and associated routes are removed so that all traffic goes
through the other network adapter (assuming a default gateway is there).
Also, if you are a roaming (portable) user, the "Media Sensing" feature is
what provides the ability to connect to any network and have everything
work, without restarting, release and renewing, and so on. After disabling
Media Sense and restarting, Windows 2000 still shows the "Network
Disconnected" icon on the TaskBar and the 'ipconfig' command still shows a
"Media State .....: Cable Disconnected" message when the cable is
disconnected. However, the Network Interface is bound to TCP/IP and you can
verify this by looking at the route table --you can use the "route print"
command-- which shows the interface IP address (you are also able to ping
the IP address assigned to the NIC).
*END*
Windows Vista has the new User Account Control feature, which impacts the running of MIMIC. For details, consult this Analysis of the Windows Vista Security Model from Symantec. In order to enable to run MIMIC on Vista, you have 2 options:
This turns UAC off globally. NOTE: do this only if you are aware of the implications of this action.
This involves changing the access control level of the MIMIC programs.
On Windows Vista, the new TCP/IP stack tries to do "duplicate address detection" by default. This prevents MIMIC from starting agents, because IP aliasing is delayed, and even with a workaround in our software would unacceptably slow down the starting of agents. To correctly workaround the problem, you need to disable "duplicate address detection" for the network interface using the Windows netsh utility:
netsh interface ipv4 set interface "name or index" dadtransmits=0
The interface name and index info can be obtained by
netsh interface ipv4 show interfaces
For example:
H:\>netsh interface ipv4 show interfaces Idx Met MTU State Name --- --- ----- ----------- ------------------- 1 50 4294967295 connected Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1 7 20 1500 connected Local Area Connection H:\>netsh interface ipv4 set interface "7" dadtransmits=0
Crashes can be analysed post-mortem using the Dr. Watson's crash dumps. This requires that Dr. Watson be enabled to handle any application exceptions on the system.
To install Dr. Watson as the default exception handler :
A subsequent crash should popup the Dr. Watson dialog. Search for the following files in the Windows directory (this location can be changed using the Dr. Watson GUI) : drwtsn32.log and user.dmp . Send these to Gambit Technical Support (support@gambitcomm.com).
We are constantly working to remove limitations, but currently we know of the following:
This problem is unrelated to MIMIC. Any test program (eg. ifdiag shipped with MIMIC) which uses the Windows API to register/unregister network addresses will reproduce the problem.