Simulation Mode
Running the network:
-- In this mode, you may create and edit many network scenarios to test various situations. You may create a new scenario by clicking the "New" button. The new scenario will be added to the pull down menu, and you may switch to any scenario by choosing it from the pull down menu. You may also delete a scenario by clicking the "Delete" button.
-- In any scenario, you will have control of the simulation's Timeline. The timeline consists of individual "time frames". Like individual frames in a movie, you can view the state of the network at any time frame. You can also edit the simulation at any time frame. For example, you may create a packet from PC 0 to PC 1 at frame 1. Then at frame 3, while the packet is still in transmission, you may create another packet in the network, say from PC 0 to PC 2. The frame indicator (the red vertical line) in the Timeline indicates exactly which time frame you are currently at.
-- To add a new packet to the simulation, click on the Add Packet
icon . A new packet will appear on the
timeline, at the frame specified by the frame indicator. The new frame will
appear below any previously existing frames in the simulation. At this point
the packet is still waiting to be defined, as you must choose a source and
destination PC for the packet (Packet Tracer 3 only allows PCs to be source and
destinations). If you are in Simple Mode, just click on a PC to choose it as
the source, then click on a second PC to choose it as the destination. If you
are in Expert Mode, after you choose the source PC, a dialog will appear, in
which you can manually specify the IP address of the destination PC (and also
the MAC address if you choose not to use ARP, which is the default). Also, you
may specify the packet to be broadcast packet instead of choosing a destination
PC. Finally, you may change the Time-To-Live (TTL) parameter of the packet.
After the packet is created, a colored packet icon will appear on the source
PC.
-- You may create many packets in a scenario. A list of existing
packets stacked vertically to the left of the Timeline. You may delete any
packet by clicking on the Delete Packet icon
. Each packet will be colored for easy recognition, and you may change the
color of a packet by clicking on the colored square corresponding to a packet.
This will bring up a color picker field, from which you may click on the
desired color for the packet. Note that the Timeline toolbar is only large
enough to display three packets at a time. However, you may scroll up and down
the timeline with the
and
arrows to view other packets.
-- You may run the simulation at any time by using the Play, Forward, and Back buttons. Press Play to let the simulation run by itself (starting from the frame indicator). It will step through all active frames of the simulation. You may pause the run at any frame by pressing the Pause button (The Play button becomes the Pause button during a run). You may at use the Forward button to go to the next frame manually, or the Back button to return to the previous frame.
-- In any frame, you may examine in detail any packet in the workspace. Just click on the packet on a device to view the Packet Info window. This window tells you what the device did to the packet at each applicable OSI layer. Just click on a layer to see the information.
-- You may also examine the available tables on a device by clicking the device icon. Clicking on a router or cloud shows the device's routing table, and clicking on a switch or bridge shows the device's MAC table.