TRex realistic traffic generator

hhaim

2014-11-01

What problem is being solved?

• Network elements include complex stateful features
• Require testing with stateful and real traffic mix
• Traffic generators of stateful/realistic traffic are:
  • Expensive ~$100-500K
  • Not scalable for high rates
  • Not flexible
• Due to cost, quality is impacted
  • Limited access / testing
  • Late testing
  • No standard

What is TRex?

• TRex is a statefull traffic generator tool based on a smart replay of real flows (not a full TCP/IP stack,yet)

• Generates, manipulates and amplifies based on templates of a real/captured flows.
• Templates are processed offline
• High performance full line rate
  • tx= up to 200Gb/sec rx=up to 200Gb/sec
• Low cost C220M UCS-1RU, Cisco internal eqip
• Generate both sides of the traffic Clients and Servers
• Standard hardware (X86/Intel NIC I350,82599,XL710)

• Flexible and Open Software (DPDK)
• Support Virtualization
• Virtual interface support E1000 , VMXNET3. Enabler for
  • Amazon AWS
  • Cisco LaaS

Realistic traffic model

TRex high level software architecture

• DPDK
  • user space driver
  • Big TLB
  • Utilize all DDR banks
• Multi-Threaded
  • Scale linearly
  • ~20Gb/sec per DP core
• No TCP-IP
  • Fast events scheduler
  • Generate flows template
  • Can support 1K templates
• Slow-path flexibility (per-flow)
  • Client/server generation
  • Measure latency
  • Measure flow order
  • NAT translation learning

TRex basic flows generation algorithm

DNS simple profile example

• traffic profile is in YAML format

$more cap2/dns_test.yaml
- duration : 10.0
  generator :
          distribution : "seq"
          clients_start : "16.0.0.1"
          clients_end   : "16.0.0.255"
          servers_start : "48.0.0.1"
          servers_end   : "48.0.0.255"
          dual_port_mask : "1.0.0.0"
          tcp_aging      : 1
          udp_aging      : 1
  cap_info :
     - name: cap2/dns.pcap               <1>
       cps : 1.0                         <2>

DNS simple profile output

DNS simple profile chart

HTTP & DNS profile example

- duration : 1.0
  generator :
          distribution : "seq"
          clients_start : "16.0.0.1"
          clients_end   : "16.0.0.10"
          servers_start : "48.0.0.1"
          servers_end   : "48.0.0.3"
          dual_port_mask : "1.0.0.0"
          tcp_aging      : 1
          udp_aging      : 1
  cap_ipg    : true
  cap_info :
     - name: cap2/dns.pcap
       cps : 10.0                        <1>
     - name: avl/delay_10_http_browsing_0.pcap
       cps : 2.0                         <1>

HTTP & DNS profile chart

EMIX traffic profile

• EMIX traffic profile suggested. used for NBAR/AVC tests
• Property
  • BW: 70% TCP (http, mail) , 30% UDP (rtp)
  • Connections: 50% TCP (http, mail) , 50% UDP (rtp, dns)
  • Avg. Packet Size (~585B)
  • PPS= 221K per 1Gb/sec
  • CPS = 4K per 1Gb/sec
  • Flows per 1Gb/sec = 50K
  • Avg. Packets per flow (50)

EMIX YAML profile

- duration : 0.1
  generator :
          distribution : "seq"
          clients_start : "16.0.0.1"
          clients_end   : "16.0.1.255"
          servers_start : "48.0.0.1"
          servers_end   : "48.0.20.255"
          dual_port_mask : "1.0.0.0"
  cap_ipg    : true
  cap_info :
     - name: avl/delay_10_http_get_0.pcap
       cps : 404.52
     - name: avl/delay_10_http_post_0.pcap
       cps : 404.52
     - name: avl/delay_10_https_0.pcap
       cps : 130.8745
     - name: avl/delay_10_http_browsing_0.pcap
       cps : 709.89
     - name: avl/delay_10_exchange_0.pcap
       cps : 253.81
     - name: avl/delay_10_mail_pop_2.pcap
       cps : 4.759
     - name: avl/delay_10_oracle_0.pcap
       cps : 79.3178
     - name: avl/delay_10_rtp_160k_full.pcap
       cps : 2.776
     - name: avl/delay_10_smtp_0.pcap
       cps : 7.3369
     - name: avl/delay_10_sip_video_call_full.pcap
       cps : 29.347
     - name: avl/delay_10_citrix_0.pcap
       cps : 43.6248
     - name: avl/delay_10_dns_0.pcap
       cps : 1975.015

EMIX profile chart

TRex command line main options

$.sudo /t-rex-64 -f [traffic_yaml] -m [muti]  -d [duration]  -l [Hz=1000] -c [cores]

TRex Vision

• All in One, most of the functionality of existing tools
• Standard tests (e.g. traffic mix, automation) across features/platforms
• Cisco wide developers community
• Open source, Standardize tests

TRex GUI

• Monitor GUI works on Windows 7
• Monitor real-time properties of TRex ( e.g min/max/average latency,jitter )

Python API and automation tools

import trex_client

    trex = trex_client.CTRexClient('csi-kiwi-02')
    ret = trex.start_trex(
        m = 1.1,
        d = 20,
        f = 'avl/sfr_delay_10_1g.yaml',
        l = 1000)

    while trex.is_running() :
        trex.get_running_info()
        res=trex.get_result_obj()
        if res.is_done_warmup ():
          res.get_value_list("trex-global.data.m_tx_bps");
        time.sleep(1);

    ret = trex.stop_trex()

TRex On your laptop

• You can experience TRex on your laptop

More information

• This presentation is about Stateful mode, have a look into Stateless (STL) and Advance Stateful (ASTF) models

Benefit

• Significant budget saving
• Product quality

Resource