TINOS:
=====

What is TINOS:
--------------

In essence, TINOS consists of a fully functional componentised IPv4 network stack and
the ancillary supporting infrastructure. The network stack is implemented as a set of
software components. A component typically is a well-defined unit such as a protocol
e.g. TCP is a single component. These components are then deployed as an OSGi based
application within an application server (Virgo Web Server).

TINOS network components (ARP, IP, TCP, UDP,...) have been ported from the JNode
operating system. These OSGi components are then grouped into an application instance
for deployment within the Virgo Web Server. These application instances are entirely
isolated and self-contained from each other in the application server allowing for
multiple network stack instances to co-exist in isolation - in other words multiple
network stacks running independently. The underlying network medium "ethernet" is
provided by using Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) as a network
network overlay across which the stacks can communicate.

TINOS network stack applications function as completely independent and isolated
virtual nodes. Further components (e.g. traffic generators) can be added into
the OSGi applications which then use the TINOS stack to perform the inter-node
network communication.

Java New Operating system Design Effort (JNode) is an open-source project to
create a Java platform operating system. The project has taken the unique direction
of creating all the software in java itself, with the exception of some assembly
language to boot and load the system. JNode has an entirely java based Internet
Protocol, version 4 (IPv4) network stack which has been used in the field.

The OSGi framework is a module system for Java that implements a complete and
dynamic component model, something that does not exist in standalone Java Virtual
Machine (JVM) environments. Applications or components (coming in the form of
bundles for deployment) can be remotely installed, started, stopped, updated and
uninstalled without requiring a reboot; management of Java packages/classes is
specified in great detail. Life cycle management is done via APIs which allow for
remote downloading of management policies. The service registry allows bundles to
detect the addition of new services, or the removal of services, and adapt accordingly.

License:
--------
LGPL : http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html

The reason behind the selection of the LGPL license is based primarily on the
code base that has been ported from the JNode project. The JNode project uses the
LGPL license. All modified source code must remain under this license and it is
efficient to keep additional source code contributed by WIT (via the EU FP7 ICT
4WARD project) under the same license as they may be intermixed within the same
organisational packages.

Where to begin:
---------------
Have a look under the documentation/UserGuides folder. A presentation from 
FutureNet 2010 about TINOS, Installation & Build System Guides. Plus more to
come :)

Directory Structure:
--------------------

+- documentation
   Project documentation, Initial configuration files (db/env), UserGuides,
   Sample Demo (Simple Ping Test) and latex templates for documentation.

+- projects
   Source Code - java projects. All the bundles that make TINOS possible.

+- repository
   Downloaded artifacts (local repository of dependencies) and areas
   for integration-repo / ivy-cache.

+- build
   Spring-build backup & template for creation of java projects.

Branch Model:
-------------
Checkout gitflow, this is the branching model that is going to be used.