Testing On A WAN Without A WAN

• Writing for a WAN is different then writing for a LAN. The TCP stack is the same - the communications conditions are not.
• NIST Net - a free-software patch to the linux kernel adds capabilities of WAN simulation (delay packets, reduce bandwidth and add random packet drops).
• Very poor documentation, and some annoying bugs - but for a product that worthy - we learned how to work around these issues.
• Once it is set up and you've learned how to use it - changing the configuration is very simple.
• It required a dedicated host, but a single host can simulate several WANs, so there was no need for an extra host per developer.

Originally written by guy keren