Connecting a simulator to a real network opens many new possibilities. For example, it makes it easy to download files to the simulated machines using FTP, to access the simulated machines remotely through telnet, or to test software on simulated machines against real machines.
Simics provides three kinds of real-network connections. This chapter will go through all of them in details, with numerous examples. Section 3.1 starts by explaining the preparatory steps for all the examples presented afterwards. Section 3.2 goes through all three kinds of real-network connections, how they are set up and what they provide.
Some real-network connections require specific configuration on the host system: these are covered in section 3.3. Section 3.4 describes how to select the correct host interface when running on a host with multiple Ethernet interfaces.
Finally, section 3.5 describes how to tune real network connections to improve their performance, and section 3.6 contains a troubleshooting guide to help diagnose problems.
Connecting a simulated network to a real network requires some knowledge of network administration issues.