¶ Container Service Migration at the Mobile Edge
Demonstrate traffic-aware dynamic container migration between edge cloud nodes using a license plate recognition application, observing how migrating a running container reduces application latency under simulated load or mobility conditions.
¶ Overview
Containers run as userspace processes on top of a shared kernel and outperform virtual machines in both bandwidth and CPU overhead. This property makes them well-suited for mobile edge cloud scenarios where workloads need to follow a user as they move between access points, or where a heavily-loaded node should hand off its containers to a lightly-loaded neighbor.
This tutorial walks through the container migration workflow on the COSMOS testbed. A license plate recognition container is started on a source node and then migrated live to a destination node using the conmig.sh script. The node information and migration results are observed from the sandbox console.
The underlying research is described in:
Maheshwari, Sumit, Shalini Choudhury, Ivan Seskar, and Dipankar Raychaudhuri. "Traffic-aware dynamic container migration for real-time support in mobile edge clouds." In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Networks and Telecommunications Systems (ANTS), pp. 1–6. IEEE, 2018.
and in the ShareOn paper (see References).
¶ Learning outcomes
After completing this tutorial you will be able to:
- Load a container-enabled disk image onto testbed nodes using
omf load. - Run a containerized edge application (license plate recognition) on a COSMOS node.
- Execute a live container migration between two edge nodes using the provided migration script.
- Observe application outputs before and after migration via SSH to the nodes.
¶ At a glance
| Difficulty | Intermediate |
| Estimated time | 45 min |
| Domain / sandbox | sb1.cosmos-lab.org |
| Topic group | Cloud & Edge Computing |
| Last verified | Not re-tested (migrated 2026-06-20) |
¶ Prerequisites
Background knowledge
- Familiarity with Linux containers (Docker or LXC concepts).
- The six-step experiment life cycle.
Account & access
- A COSMOS account — register here.
- An approved reservation on the domain above — see Make a reservation.
- SSH access to the domain console — see SSH access.
¶ Resources required
Devices / nodes
| Resource | Role | Qty | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| srv1-lg1 | Source edge node (container origin) | 1 | |
| srv2-lg1 | Destination edge node (migration target) | 1 | |
| Console node | Orchestration / script execution | 1 | Sandbox console; no image load required |
Note: The source states "three nodes are required" but the setup steps reference only two compute nodes (
srv1-lg1,srv2-lg1) plus the console.
Disk images
| Image | Load onto | Provides |
|---|---|---|
| conmig5.ndz | srv1-lg1, srv2-lg1 | Container runtime, license plate recognition application, migration tooling |
Software components
| Component | Version | Source |
|---|---|---|
Container migration image (conmig5.ndz) |
5 (latest released) | Preloaded via omf load |
Migration script (conmig.sh) |
TODO: verify | Downloaded from wiki.cosmos-lab.org during setup (see Setup step 6) |
| License plate recognition application | TODO: verify | Preinstalled in conmig5.ndz |
| ShareOn full codebase (optional) | TODO: verify | GitHub — sumitece87/shareon |
Spectrum / RF / special
Not applicable.
¶ Topology
The container is migrated from the source node (srv1-lg1) to the destination node (srv2-lg1). The sandbox console coordinates the experiment and collects results. Both nodes are reachable from the console via SSH.
¶ Setup
-
Reserve the resources and log into the console (the
-Xflag enables X11 tunnelling if needed):ssh -X <username>@console.sb1.cosmos-lab.org -
Make sure the resources are off before imaging:
omf tell -a offh -t system:topo:allres -
Load the container migration image onto both compute nodes (this may take a few minutes):
omf load -i conmig5.ndz -t srv1-lg1,srv2-lg1 -
Turn the nodes on:
omf tell -a on -t system:topo:images -
Verify both nodes are reachable:
ping srv1-lg1 ping srv2-lg1 -
On the console, create a working directory and download the migration script:
mkdir migration cd migration wget https://wiki.cosmos-lab.org/raw-attachment/wiki/Tutorials/EdgeComputing/ServiceMigration/conmig.sh --no-check-certificate
¶ Instructions
¶ Step 1 — Log into the nodes and inspect the image
Open a separate SSH session (with X11 forwarding) to each node from the console:
ssh -X root@srv1-lg1
ssh -X root@srv2-lg1
The files required for the experiment are preloaded in conmig5.ndz. The full ShareOn codebase (including the license plate recognition application) is also available at:
# Optional: clone the full ShareOn source
git clone https://github.com/sumitece87/shareon
¶ Step 2 — Set script permissions
Back on the console, inside the migration directory, make the script executable:
chmod +x *.sh
¶ Step 3 — Run the migration script
From the migration directory on the console, execute the migration script to observe container packing and live migration:
./conmig.sh
The script starts the license plate recognition container on srv1-lg1 (source), then migrates it to srv2-lg1 (destination).
¶ Step 4 — Observe application output on the nodes
SSH into each node to inspect the application results before and after migration:
ssh -X root@srv1-lg1
# inspect application output / container status on source
ssh -X root@srv2-lg1
# inspect application output / container status after migration
The license plate recognition application processes images loaded onto the node and its output should be observable at the destination after migration completes.
¶ Verification
- Both nodes respond to
pingfrom the console after imaging. ./conmig.shcompletes without error and prints migration progress.- Application output is visible on
srv2-lg1(the migration destination) after the script finishes.
¶ Cleanup
omf tell -a offh -t system:topo:allres
No omf save is needed unless you modified the image.
¶ Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
ping srv1-lg1 or ping srv2-lg1 fails after power-on |
Nodes still booting | Wait 60–90 s and retry; use omf stat to confirm node status |
omf load times out |
Node did not power off cleanly | Run omf tell -a offh -t srv1-lg1,srv2-lg1 and retry omf load |
wget conmig.sh fails (certificate error) |
TLS verification mismatch | The --no-check-certificate flag is already included in the command above |
| Migration script errors on container checkpoint/restore | Kernel capability missing in image | Verify conmig5.ndz is the correct image version; contact the COSMOS support team |
| Application output not visible on destination | Migration did not complete | Check console output from ./conmig.sh for error lines; confirm the destination node is reachable |
¶ References
- Make a reservation
- SSH access guide
- ShareOn GitHub repository
- Maheshwari et al., "Traffic-aware dynamic container migration for real-time support in mobile edge clouds," IEEE ANTS 2018. IEEE Xplore
- OMF commands reference
Author(s): COSMOS team (original: Sumit Maheshwari, WINLAB, Rutgers University) · Last verified: Not re-tested (migrated 2026-06-20) · Tested image/release: conmig5.ndz · Tags: edge-computing, containers, migration, mobile-edge-cloud