Mininet Installation Error: Failed to Start OpenVSwitch-Switch on Ubuntu 22.04 WSL2

This article will guide you through the process of resolving an installation error encountered while installing Mininet on Ubuntu 22.04 WSL2. The error message is as follows:

pedro@DESKTOP-HNMS5UI:/mnt/c/Users/PedroFraga$ sudo apt install mininet

Prerequisites

Make sure that you have the following prerequisites in place before continuing with the installation:

• A working installation of Ubuntu 22.04 WSL2
• A user account with sudo privileges

Understanding the Error

The error message you encountered is related to the Open vSwitch (OVS) component of Mininet. OVS is a software-defined network (SDN) datapath implementation that allows for efficient packet processing. The error indicates that the OVS daemon failed to start during the installation process.

Resolving the Error

To resolve the error, you can try the following steps:

Step 1: Install the Required Packages

Ensure that you have the required packages installed on your system. Run the following command:

sudo apt install -y build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Step 2: Install Open vSwitch Manually

If the OVS daemon still fails to start, you can try installing it manually. Run the following commands:

• sudo apt remove openvswitch-switch
• wget https://github.com/openvswitch/ovs/releases/download/v2.16.0/openvswitch-2.16.0.tar.gz
• tar xvf openvswitch-2.16.0.tar.gz
• cd openvswitch-2.16.0
• sudo apt install -y libssl-dev libselinux1-dev libcap-ng-dev
• ./configure
• make
• sudo make install
• sudo modprobe openvswitch
• sudo ovs-vsctl add-br br0

Testing the Installation

Once you have completed the installation process, you can test the installation by running the following command:

sudo mn --test

If the installation was successful, you should see a series of tests run and pass.

References

• Mininet Installation Guide
• Open vSwitch GitHub Repository