ION Configuration Tools

ION provides several tools for generating and managing node configurations. Choose the tool that best fits your environment and needs.

Official Tools

ION Config Tool - The official, full-featured, web GUI configuration tool for ION. It supports all ION configuration options. It also includes the ionlauncher tool - a simplified command-line utility to generate ION configurations and launch ION nodes.

ION Network Model - A graphical frontend to specify a network of computer hosts, DTN nodes, IP address assignments, and link connections in a JSON file. The output can be imported into the ION Config Tool to generate ION configuration files.

Additional Utilities (planned for 4.2)

ionrun - Simple configuration in a terminal-only environment. No Python, no Java dependencies. Suitable for developers on embedded systems to quickly generate configurations for unit testing with a reduced option set in a terminal session. It can ingest configuration output produced by the ION Config Tool.

ION Dev Kit (re-introduced) - A framework to set up and launch multi-node ION network scenarios using the CORE emulator for visualization. The ION Dev Kit was previously discontinued after ION 3.6. It is under development and planned to be re-introduced for ION 4.2.

Protocol Tuning

LTP Configuration Tool (doc/ION-LTP-configuration_tool.xlsm) - An Excel workbook for computing per-span LTP settings from a link's frame error rate, bandwidth, and delay; see Using the LTP Configuration Tool and the measured LTP Performance results. Note: the tool is built around the m maxber parameter, deprecated in ION 4.2 in favor of m maxseglossrate / m maxretries; until it is retargeted, follow the guide's deprecation note and the cell/VBA migration spec in doc/ION-LTP-config-tool-maxber-migration.md.