Wan emulation on linux

Question

I have to connect two different geographic networks with an OpenVPN (for instance)

Before doing that "in the real world", I wish I could test my configuration.

My main idea is the emulation of "private" WAN ecosystem. I will be creating (on an unique machine) 2 Linux guests (VMWare workstations with bridged network adapter). Each guests will get a fake WAN address.

After that, I will be able, normally :), to install on these guests all kind of OpenVPN configuration I need.

Is it worth a try ? Do you see other or better way ?

Answer 1

Your main idea seems fine, however, if you want to try a little more realistic scenario, you may find WANem interesting. You can actually emulate latency, packet corruption/loss, jitter, low bandwidth, and other scenarios.

References:

http://packetlife.net/blog/2011/jan/12/emulating-wans-wanem/

http://vninja.net/network/using-the-wanem-wan-emulator-virtual-appliance/

Answer 2

I have done the same scenario in the last two weeks,

1- i installed two virtual machines, used virtual Box

2- Configured the first one as openvpn server, and the second client.

3- Used private ips, why do you need to test on public ips it will make no difference, the only issue that you might face when moving to the real world is that the service provider has blocked some ports, just let them allow these ports.

4- it would be much better if you used the same service provider on the two sites if that is possible.

now things are fine on the two sites ...