Hi all, Any thoughts on products that screw up networks in deterministic (and realistic found-in-the-wild) ways? I'm thinking of stuff like PacketStorm, Dummynet, etc. Dial up jitter, latency, tail drop, RED, whatever... (I know someone's gonna say "Just buy a Brand Z FubarSwitch 3k, they will screw up your whole network and you don't even have to configure it to do so!") I'm all-ears like Ross Perot. Thanks, -r
In a message written on Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 08:51:13PM -0500, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
Any thoughts on products that screw up networks in deterministic (and realistic found-in-the-wild) ways? I'm thinking of stuff like PacketStorm, Dummynet, etc. Dial up jitter, latency, tail drop, RED, whatever...
(I know someone's gonna say "Just buy a Brand Z FubarSwitch 3k, they will screw up your whole network and you don't even have to configure it to do so!")
The only good L2 solutions I've ever seen are expensive commercial testing. DummyNet, on a L3 aware FreeBSD box is extremely useful and easy to configure to simulate varous loss or latency patterns. What tool is right depends on if you want to test at L2 (simulate a circuit/cable with a particular problem) or L3 (just a router in the middle dropping packets), or testing an end user application. L2, particularly if you want to simulate things like a duplex mismatch is hard, and not often needed. If your goal is to test applications against network conditions, OSX has a nifty new tool, "Network Link Conditioner". It's basically just dummynet with various throughput, delay, and packet loss settings but it makes it dead simple to select from various pull downs. http://www.thegeeksclub.com/simulate-internet-connectivity-speed-mac-os-lion... I bring it up mainly because if you want to set your own DummyNet settings for other testing it's a nice database of average case performance for a number of link types! -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
IWL's "Maxwell" is probably what you want: http://www.iwl.com/press-releases/new-capabilities-for-maxwell-the-network-i... Good luck breaking stuff! On Wednesday, February 1, 2012, Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org> wrote:
In a message written on Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 08:51:13PM -0500, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
Any thoughts on products that screw up networks in deterministic (and realistic found-in-the-wild) ways? I'm thinking of stuff like PacketStorm, Dummynet, etc. Dial up jitter, latency, tail drop, RED, whatever...
(I know someone's gonna say "Just buy a Brand Z FubarSwitch 3k, they will screw up your whole network and you don't even have to configure it to do so!")
The only good L2 solutions I've ever seen are expensive commercial testing. DummyNet, on a L3 aware FreeBSD box is extremely useful and easy to configure to simulate varous loss or latency patterns.
What tool is right depends on if you want to test at L2 (simulate a circuit/cable with a particular problem) or L3 (just a router in the middle dropping packets), or testing an end user application. L2, particularly if you want to simulate things like a duplex mismatch is hard, and not often needed.
If your goal is to test applications against network conditions, OSX has a nifty new tool, "Network Link Conditioner". It's basically just dummynet with various throughput, delay, and packet loss settings but it makes it dead simple to select from various pull downs.
http://www.thegeeksclub.com/simulate-internet-connectivity-speed-mac-os-lion...
I bring it up mainly because if you want to set your own DummyNet settings for other testing it's a nice database of average case performance for a number of link types!
-- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
-- ~tom +1 408 890-7548 (Google Voice)
I know people who have been very happy with Apposite. They have a couple different lines that can simulate a lot of different conditions. http://www.apposite-tech.com I know they call them WAN simulators but I know a company that strictly uses them for layer2 to simulate congestion between switches, etc. On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 7:05 PM, Thomas Maufer <tmaufer@gmail.com> wrote:
IWL's "Maxwell" is probably what you want:
http://www.iwl.com/press-releases/new-capabilities-for-maxwell-the-network-i...
Good luck breaking stuff!
On Wednesday, February 1, 2012, Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org> wrote:
In a message written on Wed, Feb 01, 2012 at 08:51:13PM -0500, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
Any thoughts on products that screw up networks in deterministic (and realistic found-in-the-wild) ways? I'm thinking of stuff like PacketStorm, Dummynet, etc. Dial up jitter, latency, tail drop, RED, whatever...
(I know someone's gonna say "Just buy a Brand Z FubarSwitch 3k, they will screw up your whole network and you don't even have to configure it to do so!")
The only good L2 solutions I've ever seen are expensive commercial testing. DummyNet, on a L3 aware FreeBSD box is extremely useful and easy to configure to simulate varous loss or latency patterns.
What tool is right depends on if you want to test at L2 (simulate a circuit/cable with a particular problem) or L3 (just a router in the middle dropping packets), or testing an end user application. L2, particularly if you want to simulate things like a duplex mismatch is hard, and not often needed.
If your goal is to test applications against network conditions, OSX has a nifty new tool, "Network Link Conditioner". It's basically just dummynet with various throughput, delay, and packet loss settings but it makes it dead simple to select from various pull downs.
http://www.thegeeksclub.com/simulate-internet-connectivity-speed-mac-os-lion...
I bring it up mainly because if you want to set your own DummyNet settings for other testing it's a nice database of average case performance for a number of link types!
-- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
--
~tom
+1 408 890-7548 (Google Voice)
You have pretty much two approaches: -Special built hardware network emulators -Network emulator software running on generic PC Special built HW: If you need extreme accuracy, i.e., delay generation to micro/nanosecond accuracy, you need to go with special purpose boxes. Special built HW also usually provides line rate throughput, regardless of impairments you are applying. I have experience using Anue Systems GEM/XGEM and Calnex Paragon-X network emulators. Both tools are special built hardware platforms that allow generating various network impairments (delay, jitter, packet reordering, packet loss, CRC errors, etc.). In my opinion Anue is easier to use. It provides Web GUI where you can configure different impairment profiles. Calnex on the other hand requires you to install a Client software on your Windows PC. In the end, both products support pretty much the same features. There are some differences if you are doing specific testing with network synchronization protocols, like SyncE or 1588v2 (PTPv2). Network emulator SW on generic PC: I have very little experience on running SW based network emulators. I used to play with one that was running on Linux box - unfortunately I cannot remember the software name. The linux software was ok for introducing packet loss, but way inaccurate when it comes to delay insertion. If accuracy of tens of milliseconds is good enough for you, the software based approach might be good for you. On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 5:51 PM, Robert E. Seastrom <rs@seastrom.com> wrote:
Hi all,
Any thoughts on products that screw up networks in deterministic (and realistic found-in-the-wild) ways? I'm thinking of stuff like PacketStorm, Dummynet, etc. Dial up jitter, latency, tail drop, RED, whatever...
(I know someone's gonna say "Just buy a Brand Z FubarSwitch 3k, they will screw up your whole network and you don't even have to configure it to do so!")
I'm all-ears like Ross Perot.
Thanks,
-r
netem - http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/networking/netem "netem provides Network Emulation functionality for testing protocols by emulating the properties of wide area networks. The current version emulates variable delay, loss, duplication and re-ordering." I have used this in the lab, works OK. You can use it with the bridge util to stay layer 2. -----Original Message----- From: Juuso Lehtinen [mailto:juuso.lehtinen@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2012 9:02 PM To: Robert E. Seastrom Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: This network is too good... You have pretty much two approaches: -Special built hardware network emulators -Network emulator software running on generic PC Special built HW: If you need extreme accuracy, i.e., delay generation to micro/nanosecond accuracy, you need to go with special purpose boxes. Special built HW also usually provides line rate throughput, regardless of impairments you are applying. I have experience using Anue Systems GEM/XGEM and Calnex Paragon-X network emulators. Both tools are special built hardware platforms that allow generating various network impairments (delay, jitter, packet reordering, packet loss, CRC errors, etc.). In my opinion Anue is easier to use. It provides Web GUI where you can configure different impairment profiles. Calnex on the other hand requires you to install a Client software on your Windows PC. In the end, both products support pretty much the same features. There are some differences if you are doing specific testing with network synchronization protocols, like SyncE or 1588v2 (PTPv2). Network emulator SW on generic PC: I have very little experience on running SW based network emulators. I used to play with one that was running on Linux box - unfortunately I cannot remember the software name. The linux software was ok for introducing packet loss, but way inaccurate when it comes to delay insertion. If accuracy of tens of milliseconds is good enough for you, the software based approach might be good for you. On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 5:51 PM, Robert E. Seastrom <rs@seastrom.com> wrote:
Hi all,
Any thoughts on products that screw up networks in deterministic (and realistic found-in-the-wild) ways? I'm thinking of stuff like PacketStorm, Dummynet, etc. Dial up jitter, latency, tail drop, RED, whatever...
(I know someone's gonna say "Just buy a Brand Z FubarSwitch 3k, they will screw up your whole network and you don't even have to configure it to do so!")
I'm all-ears like Ross Perot.
Thanks,
-r
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 5:51 PM, Robert E. Seastrom <rs@seastrom.com> wrote:
Hi all,
Any thoughts on products that screw up networks in deterministic (and realistic found-in-the-wild) ways? I'm thinking of stuff like PacketStorm, Dummynet, etc. Dial up jitter, latency, tail drop, RED, whatever...
(I know someone's gonna say "Just buy a Brand Z FubarSwitch 3k, they will screw up your whole network and you don't even have to configure it to do so!")
I'm all-ears like Ross Perot.
Thanks,
-r
Definite +1 for dummynet on freebsd; I've used in the lab at layer 2 in bridge mode, and layer 3 both, for doing testing. latency introduction is good down to a few ms, but isn't accurate below that--but for most of what we do, in terms of simulating latency and loss/jitter, it works like a charm. Matt
participants (7)
-
Jensen Tyler -
Juuso Lehtinen -
Leo Bicknell -
Matthew Petach -
Robert E. Seastrom -
Shacolby Jackson -
Thomas Maufer