3 HOWTO for the linux packet generator
4 ------------------------------------
6 Enable CONFIG_NET_PKTGEN to compile and build pktgen either in-kernel
7 or as a module. A module is preferred; modprobe pktgen if needed. Once
8 running, pktgen creates a thread for each CPU with affinity to that CPU.
9 Monitoring and controlling is done via /proc. It is easiest to select a
10 suitable sample script and configure that.
15 root 129 0.3 0.0 0 0 ? SW 2003 523:20 [kpktgend_0]
16 root 130 0.3 0.0 0 0 ? SW 2003 509:50 [kpktgend_1]
19 For monitoring and control pktgen creates:
20 /proc/net/pktgen/pgctrl
21 /proc/net/pktgen/kpktgend_X
25 Tuning NIC for max performance
26 ==============================
28 The default NIC settings are (likely) not tuned for pktgen's artificial
29 overload type of benchmarking, as this could hurt the normal use-case.
31 Specifically increasing the TX ring buffer in the NIC:
32 # ethtool -G ethX tx 1024
34 A larger TX ring can improve pktgen's performance, while it can hurt
35 in the general case, 1) because the TX ring buffer might get larger
36 than the CPU's L1/L2 cache, 2) because it allows more queueing in the
37 NIC HW layer (which is bad for bufferbloat).
39 One should hesitate to conclude that packets/descriptors in the HW
40 TX ring cause delay. Drivers usually delay cleaning up the
41 ring-buffers for various performance reasons, and packets stalling
42 the TX ring might just be waiting for cleanup.
44 This cleanup issue is specifically the case for the driver ixgbe
45 (Intel 82599 chip). This driver (ixgbe) combines TX+RX ring cleanups,
46 and the cleanup interval is affected by the ethtool --coalesce setting
47 of parameter "rx-usecs".
49 For ixgbe use e.g. "30" resulting in approx 33K interrupts/sec (1/30*10^6):
50 # ethtool -C ethX rx-usecs 30
55 Pktgen creates a thread for each CPU with affinity to that CPU.
56 Which is controlled through procfile /proc/net/pktgen/kpktgend_X.
58 Example: /proc/net/pktgen/kpktgend_0
62 Result: OK: add_device=eth4@0
64 Most important are the devices assigned to the thread.
66 The two basic thread commands are:
67 * add_device DEVICE@NAME -- adds a single device
68 * rem_device_all -- remove all associated devices
70 When adding a device to a thread, a corresponding procfile is created
71 which is used for configuring this device. Thus, device names need to
74 To support adding the same device to multiple threads, which is useful
75 with multi queue NICs, the device naming scheme is extended with "@":
78 The part after "@" can be anything, but it is custom to use the thread
84 The Params section holds configured information. The Current section
85 holds running statistics. The Result is printed after a run or after
86 interruption. Example:
88 /proc/net/pktgen/eth4@0
90 Params: count 100000 min_pkt_size: 60 max_pkt_size: 60
91 frags: 0 delay: 0 clone_skb: 64 ifname: eth4@0
93 queue_map_min: 0 queue_map_max: 0
94 dst_min: 192.168.81.2 dst_max:
96 src_mac: 90:e2:ba:0a:56:b4 dst_mac: 00:1b:21:3c:9d:f8
97 udp_src_min: 9 udp_src_max: 109 udp_dst_min: 9 udp_dst_max: 9
98 src_mac_count: 0 dst_mac_count: 0
99 Flags: UDPSRC_RND NO_TIMESTAMP QUEUE_MAP_CPU
101 pkts-sofar: 100000 errors: 0
102 started: 623913381008us stopped: 623913396439us idle: 25us
103 seq_num: 100001 cur_dst_mac_offset: 0 cur_src_mac_offset: 0
104 cur_saddr: 192.168.8.3 cur_daddr: 192.168.81.2
105 cur_udp_dst: 9 cur_udp_src: 42
108 Result: OK: 15430(c15405+d25) usec, 100000 (60byte,0frags)
109 6480562pps 3110Mb/sec (3110669760bps) errors: 0
114 This is done via the /proc interface, and most easily done via pgset
115 as defined in the sample scripts.
116 You need to specify PGDEV environment variable to use functions from sample
118 export PGDEV=/proc/net/pktgen/eth4@0
119 source samples/pktgen/functions.sh
123 pg_ctrl start starts injection.
124 pg_ctrl stop aborts injection. Also, ^C aborts generator.
126 pgset "clone_skb 1" sets the number of copies of the same packet
127 pgset "clone_skb 0" use single SKB for all transmits
128 pgset "burst 8" uses xmit_more API to queue 8 copies of the same
129 packet and update HW tx queue tail pointer once.
130 "burst 1" is the default
131 pgset "pkt_size 9014" sets packet size to 9014
132 pgset "frags 5" packet will consist of 5 fragments
133 pgset "count 200000" sets number of packets to send, set to zero
134 for continuous sends until explicitly stopped.
136 pgset "delay 5000" adds delay to hard_start_xmit(). nanoseconds
138 pgset "dst 10.0.0.1" sets IP destination address
139 (BEWARE! This generator is very aggressive!)
141 pgset "dst_min 10.0.0.1" Same as dst
142 pgset "dst_max 10.0.0.254" Set the maximum destination IP.
143 pgset "src_min 10.0.0.1" Set the minimum (or only) source IP.
144 pgset "src_max 10.0.0.254" Set the maximum source IP.
145 pgset "dst6 fec0::1" IPV6 destination address
146 pgset "src6 fec0::2" IPV6 source address
147 pgset "dstmac 00:00:00:00:00:00" sets MAC destination address
148 pgset "srcmac 00:00:00:00:00:00" sets MAC source address
150 pgset "queue_map_min 0" Sets the min value of tx queue interval
151 pgset "queue_map_max 7" Sets the max value of tx queue interval, for multiqueue devices
152 To select queue 1 of a given device,
153 use queue_map_min=1 and queue_map_max=1
155 pgset "src_mac_count 1" Sets the number of MACs we'll range through.
156 The 'minimum' MAC is what you set with srcmac.
158 pgset "dst_mac_count 1" Sets the number of MACs we'll range through.
159 The 'minimum' MAC is what you set with dstmac.
161 pgset "flag [name]" Set a flag to determine behaviour. Current flags
162 are: IPSRC_RND # IP source is random (between min/max)
163 IPDST_RND # IP destination is random
164 UDPSRC_RND, UDPDST_RND,
165 MACSRC_RND, MACDST_RND
167 MPLS_RND, VID_RND, SVID_RND
169 QUEUE_MAP_RND # queue map random
170 QUEUE_MAP_CPU # queue map mirrors smp_processor_id()
172 IPSEC # IPsec encapsulation (needs CONFIG_XFRM)
173 NODE_ALLOC # node specific memory allocation
174 NO_TIMESTAMP # disable timestamping
175 pgset 'flag ![name]' Clear a flag to determine behaviour.
176 Note that you might need to use single quote in
177 interactive mode, so that your shell wouldn't expand
178 the specified flag as a history command.
180 pgset "spi [SPI_VALUE]" Set specific SA used to transform packet.
182 pgset "udp_src_min 9" set UDP source port min, If < udp_src_max, then
183 cycle through the port range.
185 pgset "udp_src_max 9" set UDP source port max.
186 pgset "udp_dst_min 9" set UDP destination port min, If < udp_dst_max, then
187 cycle through the port range.
188 pgset "udp_dst_max 9" set UDP destination port max.
190 pgset "mpls 0001000a,0002000a,0000000a" set MPLS labels (in this example
191 outer label=16,middle label=32,
192 inner label=0 (IPv4 NULL)) Note that
193 there must be no spaces between the
194 arguments. Leading zeros are required.
195 Do not set the bottom of stack bit,
196 that's done automatically. If you do
197 set the bottom of stack bit, that
198 indicates that you want to randomly
199 generate that address and the flag
200 MPLS_RND will be turned on. You
201 can have any mix of random and fixed
202 labels in the label stack.
204 pgset "mpls 0" turn off mpls (or any invalid argument works too!)
206 pgset "vlan_id 77" set VLAN ID 0-4095
207 pgset "vlan_p 3" set priority bit 0-7 (default 0)
208 pgset "vlan_cfi 0" set canonical format identifier 0-1 (default 0)
210 pgset "svlan_id 22" set SVLAN ID 0-4095
211 pgset "svlan_p 3" set priority bit 0-7 (default 0)
212 pgset "svlan_cfi 0" set canonical format identifier 0-1 (default 0)
214 pgset "vlan_id 9999" > 4095 remove vlan and svlan tags
215 pgset "svlan 9999" > 4095 remove svlan tag
218 pgset "tos XX" set former IPv4 TOS field (e.g. "tos 28" for AF11 no ECN, default 00)
219 pgset "traffic_class XX" set former IPv6 TRAFFIC CLASS (e.g. "traffic_class B8" for EF no ECN, default 00)
221 pgset "rate 300M" set rate to 300 Mb/s
222 pgset "ratep 1000000" set rate to 1Mpps
224 pgset "xmit_mode netif_receive" RX inject into stack netif_receive_skb()
225 Works with "burst" but not with "clone_skb".
226 Default xmit_mode is "start_xmit".
231 A collection of tutorial scripts and helpers for pktgen is in the
232 samples/pktgen directory. The helper parameters.sh file support easy
233 and consistent parameter parsing across the sample scripts.
235 Usage example and help:
236 ./pktgen_sample01_simple.sh -i eth4 -m 00:1B:21:3C:9D:F8 -d 192.168.8.2
238 Usage: ./pktgen_sample01_simple.sh [-vx] -i ethX
239 -i : ($DEV) output interface/device (required)
240 -s : ($PKT_SIZE) packet size
241 -d : ($DEST_IP) destination IP
242 -m : ($DST_MAC) destination MAC-addr
243 -t : ($THREADS) threads to start
244 -c : ($SKB_CLONE) SKB clones send before alloc new SKB
245 -b : ($BURST) HW level bursting of SKBs
246 -v : ($VERBOSE) verbose
249 The global variables being set are also listed. E.g. the required
250 interface/device parameter "-i" sets variable $DEV. Copy the
251 pktgen_sampleXX scripts and modify them to fit your own needs.
255 pktgen.conf-1-2 # 1 CPU 2 dev
256 pktgen.conf-1-1-rdos # 1 CPU 1 dev w. route DoS
257 pktgen.conf-1-1-ip6 # 1 CPU 1 dev ipv6
258 pktgen.conf-1-1-ip6-rdos # 1 CPU 1 dev ipv6 w. route DoS
259 pktgen.conf-1-1-flows # 1 CPU 1 dev multiple flows.
264 Note that when adding devices to a specific CPU it is a good idea to
265 also assign /proc/irq/XX/smp_affinity so that the TX interrupts are bound
266 to the same CPU. This reduces cache bouncing when freeing skbs.
268 Plus using the device flag QUEUE_MAP_CPU, which maps the SKBs TX queue
269 to the running threads CPU (directly from smp_processor_id()).
273 Default IPsec transformation with ESP encapsulation plus transport mode
274 can be enabled by simply setting:
279 To avoid breaking existing testbed scripts for using AH type and tunnel mode,
280 you can use "pgset spi SPI_VALUE" to specify which transformation mode
284 Current commands and configuration options
285 ==========================================
287 ** Pgcontrol commands:
377 xmit_mode <start_xmit|netif_receive>
389 ftp://robur.slu.se/pub/Linux/net-development/pktgen-testing/
390 ftp://robur.slu.se/pub/Linux/net-development/pktgen-testing/examples/
392 Paper from Linux-Kongress in Erlangen 2004.
393 ftp://robur.slu.se/pub/Linux/net-development/pktgen-testing/pktgen_paper.pdf
396 Grant Grundler for testing on IA-64 and parisc, Harald Welte, Lennert Buytenhek
397 Stephen Hemminger, Andi Kleen, Dave Miller and many others.
400 Good luck with the linux net-development.