If you did not shut down the previous running mininet/containernet network (e.g. if you lose your connection to remote server), you will got the following error when you try to rerun your mininet network Traceback (most recent call last): File "./mynet.py", line 31, in <module> net.addLink(d2, s1) File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/mininet/net.py", line 403, in addLink File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/mininet/link.py", line 430, in __init__ File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/mininet/link.py", line 474, in makeIntfPair File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/mininet/util.py", line 202, in makeIntfPair Exception: Error creating interface pair (d2-eth0,s1-eth2): RTNETLINK answers: File exists In order to solve the problem, you need to clean up the previous running topology by using the following command sudo mn -c It will clean up all your cache. It will be something like this $ sudo mn -c *** Re