README (top)

Overview

Ants (for active node transfer system) distribution is a Java-based toolkit for constructing an active network and its applications, including some supporting utilities and documentation.

Version

The version number carried across the network by capsules created from this distribution is 1.2. A change history describes the differences from previous versions.

Contents

The core distribution contains the following directories, each with their own README.

Other directories may be present in your distribution for node extensions or application families.

Installation

ants requires Java and Tcl to build and run. This version is written entirely in JDK1.1.x compliant Java and executes as a user-level process (using the network atop UDP) with no special privileges. It should be straightforward to port to any JDK1.1.x compatible runtime. The Makefiles are written for a Unix style development environment. If gnu make is available, it will use the GNUmakefile in the top directory, but normal make should work, too. Some support scripts are also written in Tcl.

Before building, if you do not use GNU make, you must set your CLASSPATH environment variable to include the top directory of the ants distribution, e.g., if your copy is in ~/ants:

setenv CLASSPATH $HOME/ants:$CLASSPATH

This keeps the Java compiler happy. Now type make at the top level and cross your fingers. ants should then be fully built. Other targets are clean and tags. All targets work within subdirectories.

Using ants

There are several sources of information on how to use ants within the distribution:

New applications are developed as several Java classes, all of which are typically placed in the apps/ package and directory:

New applications are then run by writing a configuration file, which is typically placed in the runs/ directory, and starting one (or more) Java processes:

Feedback and Credits

The mailing list ants-interest@sds.lcs.mit.edu has been set up to discuss ants, announce distributions, report bugs, suggest features, and so forth. Please join it (by sending a message to majordomo@sds.lcs.mit.edu with subscribe ants-interest in the body) if you intend to be a regular user.

Ants was developed by David Wetherall (djw@lcs.mit.edu) with much help from other members of the Software Devices and Systems group at the MIT Lab for Computer Science. In particular, Ulana Legedza, Li Lehman, David Murphy, and Jon Santos contributed to the software design and implementation, and John Chapin, Steve Garland, John Guttag, Erik Nygren, Liuba Shrira, and David Tennenhouse contributed to the architecture.