GSoC 2026 Flent Application Integration: Community Bonding & Week 1 Update

[KEDAR KISAN]

Hi everyone,

I am excited to share the progress report for my GSoC 2026 project: Flent Application API Integration and validation in ns-3.

Below is my summary of my work during the Community Bonding period and the first week of coding.

Community Bonding Period:

1. Held sync meetings with mentors to outline the validation strategy. We agreed to use Linux Network Namespaces (netns) with hardware offloading disabled rather than virtual machines.

2. Conducted a gap analysis of real-world Flent .conf files to understand the additional parameters required for the project. It can be found here: Link.

3. Sent a proposal to this mailing list for integrating the nlohmann/json library for Flent and future ns-3  projects, which was approved.

4. Opened a Draft Merge Request: Link to vendor the nlohmann/json library into the third-party/ directory.

5. Transitioned project tracking to a formal Gitlab Work Items board: Link to organize milestones.

Week 1 Progress:

1. JSON Library Migration: Transitioned the Flent Application codebase from the legacy jsoncpp to the modern nlohmann/json library.

2. Started hands-on learning and practical experimentation with Linux Network Namespaces(netns) to understand routing and isolation, setting up the foundation to validate our ns-3 results against the real Linux kernel.

Project Links:

Repository: https://gitlab.com/k.kedar/ns-3-dev

ns-3 wiki: https://www.nsnam.org/wiki/GSOC2026Flent

GSoC Page: https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2026/projects/PCXPdFoD

Best Regards,

Kedar