• Home
  • Line#
  • Scopes#
  • Navigate#
  • Raw
  • Download
1
2
3                  HOWTO for the linux packet generator
4                  ------------------------------------
5
6Date: 041221
7
8Enable CONFIG_NET_PKTGEN to compile and build pktgen.o either in kernel
9or as module. Module is preferred. insmod pktgen if needed. Once running
10pktgen creates a thread on each CPU where each thread has affinity to its CPU.
11Monitoring and controlling is done via /proc. Easiest to select a suitable
12a sample script and configure.
13
14On a dual CPU:
15
16ps aux | grep pkt
17root       129  0.3  0.0     0    0 ?        SW    2003 523:20 [pktgen/0]
18root       130  0.3  0.0     0    0 ?        SW    2003 509:50 [pktgen/1]
19
20
21For monitoring and control pktgen creates:
22	/proc/net/pktgen/pgctrl
23	/proc/net/pktgen/kpktgend_X
24        /proc/net/pktgen/ethX
25
26
27Tuning NIC for max performance
28==============================
29
30The default NIC setting are (likely) not tuned for pktgen's artificial
31overload type of benchmarking, as this could hurt the normal use-case.
32
33Specifically increasing the TX ring buffer in the NIC:
34 # ethtool -G ethX tx 1024
35
36A larger TX ring can improve pktgen's performance, while it can hurt
37in the general case, 1) because the TX ring buffer might get larger
38than the CPUs L1/L2 cache, 2) because it allow more queueing in the
39NIC HW layer (which is bad for bufferbloat).
40
41One should be careful to conclude, that packets/descriptors in the HW
42TX ring cause delay.  Drivers usually delay cleaning up the
43ring-buffers (for various performance reasons), thus packets stalling
44the TX ring, might just be waiting for cleanup.
45
46This cleanup issues is specifically the case, for the driver ixgbe
47(Intel 82599 chip).  This driver (ixgbe) combine TX+RX ring cleanups,
48and the cleanup interval is affected by the ethtool --coalesce setting
49of parameter "rx-usecs".
50
51For ixgbe use e.g "30" resulting in approx 33K interrupts/sec (1/30*10^6):
52 # ethtool -C ethX rx-usecs 30
53
54
55Viewing threads
56===============
57/proc/net/pktgen/kpktgend_0
58Name: kpktgend_0  max_before_softirq: 10000
59Running:
60Stopped: eth1
61Result: OK: max_before_softirq=10000
62
63Most important the devices assigned to thread. Note! A device can only belong
64to one thread.
65
66
67Viewing devices
68===============
69
70Parm section holds configured info. Current hold running stats.
71Result is printed after run or after interruption. Example:
72
73/proc/net/pktgen/eth1
74
75Params: count 10000000  min_pkt_size: 60  max_pkt_size: 60
76     frags: 0  delay: 0  clone_skb: 1000000  ifname: eth1
77     flows: 0 flowlen: 0
78     dst_min: 10.10.11.2  dst_max:
79     src_min:   src_max:
80     src_mac: 00:00:00:00:00:00  dst_mac: 00:04:23:AC:FD:82
81     udp_src_min: 9  udp_src_max: 9  udp_dst_min: 9  udp_dst_max: 9
82     src_mac_count: 0  dst_mac_count: 0
83     Flags:
84Current:
85     pkts-sofar: 10000000  errors: 39664
86     started: 1103053986245187us  stopped: 1103053999346329us idle: 880401us
87     seq_num: 10000011  cur_dst_mac_offset: 0  cur_src_mac_offset: 0
88     cur_saddr: 0x10a0a0a  cur_daddr: 0x20b0a0a
89     cur_udp_dst: 9  cur_udp_src: 9
90     flows: 0
91Result: OK: 13101142(c12220741+d880401) usec, 10000000 (60byte,0frags)
92  763292pps 390Mb/sec (390805504bps) errors: 39664
93
94Configuring threads and devices
95================================
96This is done via the /proc interface easiest done via pgset in the scripts
97
98Examples:
99
100 pgset "clone_skb 1"     sets the number of copies of the same packet
101 pgset "clone_skb 0"     use single SKB for all transmits
102 pgset "burst 8"         uses xmit_more API to queue 8 copies of the same
103                         packet and update HW tx queue tail pointer once.
104                         "burst 1" is the default
105 pgset "pkt_size 9014"   sets packet size to 9014
106 pgset "frags 5"         packet will consist of 5 fragments
107 pgset "count 200000"    sets number of packets to send, set to zero
108                         for continuous sends until explicitly stopped.
109
110 pgset "delay 5000"      adds delay to hard_start_xmit(). nanoseconds
111
112 pgset "dst 10.0.0.1"    sets IP destination address
113                         (BEWARE! This generator is very aggressive!)
114
115 pgset "dst_min 10.0.0.1"            Same as dst
116 pgset "dst_max 10.0.0.254"          Set the maximum destination IP.
117 pgset "src_min 10.0.0.1"            Set the minimum (or only) source IP.
118 pgset "src_max 10.0.0.254"          Set the maximum source IP.
119 pgset "dst6 fec0::1"     IPV6 destination address
120 pgset "src6 fec0::2"     IPV6 source address
121 pgset "dstmac 00:00:00:00:00:00"    sets MAC destination address
122 pgset "srcmac 00:00:00:00:00:00"    sets MAC source address
123
124 pgset "queue_map_min 0" Sets the min value of tx queue interval
125 pgset "queue_map_max 7" Sets the max value of tx queue interval, for multiqueue devices
126                         To select queue 1 of a given device,
127                         use queue_map_min=1 and queue_map_max=1
128
129 pgset "src_mac_count 1" Sets the number of MACs we'll range through.
130                         The 'minimum' MAC is what you set with srcmac.
131
132 pgset "dst_mac_count 1" Sets the number of MACs we'll range through.
133                         The 'minimum' MAC is what you set with dstmac.
134
135 pgset "flag [name]"     Set a flag to determine behaviour.  Current flags
136                         are: IPSRC_RND # IP source is random (between min/max)
137                              IPDST_RND # IP destination is random
138                              UDPSRC_RND, UDPDST_RND,
139                              MACSRC_RND, MACDST_RND
140                              TXSIZE_RND, IPV6,
141                              MPLS_RND, VID_RND, SVID_RND
142                              FLOW_SEQ,
143                              QUEUE_MAP_RND # queue map random
144                              QUEUE_MAP_CPU # queue map mirrors smp_processor_id()
145                              UDPCSUM,
146                              IPSEC # IPsec encapsulation (needs CONFIG_XFRM)
147                              NODE_ALLOC # node specific memory allocation
148
149 pgset spi SPI_VALUE     Set specific SA used to transform packet.
150
151 pgset "udp_src_min 9"   set UDP source port min, If < udp_src_max, then
152                         cycle through the port range.
153
154 pgset "udp_src_max 9"   set UDP source port max.
155 pgset "udp_dst_min 9"   set UDP destination port min, If < udp_dst_max, then
156                         cycle through the port range.
157 pgset "udp_dst_max 9"   set UDP destination port max.
158
159 pgset "mpls 0001000a,0002000a,0000000a" set MPLS labels (in this example
160                                         outer label=16,middle label=32,
161					 inner label=0 (IPv4 NULL)) Note that
162					 there must be no spaces between the
163					 arguments. Leading zeros are required.
164					 Do not set the bottom of stack bit,
165					 that's done automatically. If you do
166					 set the bottom of stack bit, that
167					 indicates that you want to randomly
168					 generate that address and the flag
169					 MPLS_RND will be turned on. You
170					 can have any mix of random and fixed
171					 labels in the label stack.
172
173 pgset "mpls 0"		  turn off mpls (or any invalid argument works too!)
174
175 pgset "vlan_id 77"       set VLAN ID 0-4095
176 pgset "vlan_p 3"         set priority bit 0-7 (default 0)
177 pgset "vlan_cfi 0"       set canonical format identifier 0-1 (default 0)
178
179 pgset "svlan_id 22"      set SVLAN ID 0-4095
180 pgset "svlan_p 3"        set priority bit 0-7 (default 0)
181 pgset "svlan_cfi 0"      set canonical format identifier 0-1 (default 0)
182
183 pgset "vlan_id 9999"     > 4095 remove vlan and svlan tags
184 pgset "svlan 9999"       > 4095 remove svlan tag
185
186
187 pgset "tos XX"           set former IPv4 TOS field (e.g. "tos 28" for AF11 no ECN, default 00)
188 pgset "traffic_class XX" set former IPv6 TRAFFIC CLASS (e.g. "traffic_class B8" for EF no ECN, default 00)
189
190 pgset stop    	          aborts injection. Also, ^C aborts generator.
191
192 pgset "rate 300M"        set rate to 300 Mb/s
193 pgset "ratep 1000000"    set rate to 1Mpps
194
195Example scripts
196===============
197
198A collection of small tutorial scripts for pktgen is in examples dir.
199
200pktgen.conf-1-1                  # 1 CPU 1 dev
201pktgen.conf-1-2                  # 1 CPU 2 dev
202pktgen.conf-2-1                  # 2 CPU's 1 dev
203pktgen.conf-2-2                  # 2 CPU's 2 dev
204pktgen.conf-1-1-rdos             # 1 CPU 1 dev w. route DoS
205pktgen.conf-1-1-ip6              # 1 CPU 1 dev ipv6
206pktgen.conf-1-1-ip6-rdos         # 1 CPU 1 dev ipv6  w. route DoS
207pktgen.conf-1-1-flows            # 1 CPU 1 dev multiple flows.
208
209Run in shell: ./pktgen.conf-X-Y It does all the setup including sending.
210
211
212Interrupt affinity
213===================
214Note when adding devices to a specific CPU there good idea to also assign
215/proc/irq/XX/smp_affinity so the TX-interrupts gets bound to the same CPU.
216as this reduces cache bouncing when freeing skb's.
217
218Enable IPsec
219============
220Default IPsec transformation with ESP encapsulation plus Transport mode
221could be enabled by simply setting:
222
223pgset "flag IPSEC"
224pgset "flows 1"
225
226To avoid breaking existing testbed scripts for using AH type and tunnel mode,
227user could use "pgset spi SPI_VALUE" to specify which formal of transformation
228to employ.
229
230
231Current commands and configuration options
232==========================================
233
234** Pgcontrol commands:
235
236start
237stop
238
239** Thread commands:
240
241add_device
242rem_device_all
243max_before_softirq
244
245
246** Device commands:
247
248count
249clone_skb
250debug
251
252frags
253delay
254
255src_mac_count
256dst_mac_count
257
258pkt_size
259min_pkt_size
260max_pkt_size
261
262mpls
263
264udp_src_min
265udp_src_max
266
267udp_dst_min
268udp_dst_max
269
270flag
271  IPSRC_RND
272  IPDST_RND
273  UDPSRC_RND
274  UDPDST_RND
275  MACSRC_RND
276  MACDST_RND
277  TXSIZE_RND
278  IPV6
279  MPLS_RND
280  VID_RND
281  SVID_RND
282  FLOW_SEQ
283  QUEUE_MAP_RND
284  QUEUE_MAP_CPU
285  UDPCSUM
286  IPSEC
287  NODE_ALLOC
288
289dst_min
290dst_max
291
292src_min
293src_max
294
295dst_mac
296src_mac
297
298clear_counters
299
300dst6
301src6
302
303flows
304flowlen
305
306rate
307ratep
308
309References:
310ftp://robur.slu.se/pub/Linux/net-development/pktgen-testing/
311ftp://robur.slu.se/pub/Linux/net-development/pktgen-testing/examples/
312
313Paper from Linux-Kongress in Erlangen 2004.
314ftp://robur.slu.se/pub/Linux/net-development/pktgen-testing/pktgen_paper.pdf
315
316Thanks to:
317Grant Grundler for testing on IA-64 and parisc, Harald Welte,  Lennert Buytenhek
318Stephen Hemminger, Andi Kleen, Dave Miller and many others.
319
320
321Good luck with the linux net-development.
322