1xdp-trafficgen(8) An XDP-based traffic generator xdp-trafficgen(8)
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6 XDP-trafficgen - an XDP-based traffic generator
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9 XDP-trafficgen is a packet generator utilising the XDP kernel subsystem
10 to generate packets transmit them through a network interface. Packets
11 are dynamically generated and transmitted in the kernel, allowing for
12 high performance (millions of packets per second per core).
13 XDP-trafficgen supports generating UDP traffic with fixed or dynamic
16 destination ports, and also has basic support for generating dummy TCP
17 traffic on a single flow.
18 Running xdp-traffigen
21 The syntax for running xdp-bench is:
22 Usage: xdp-trafficgen COMMAND [options]
24 COMMAND can be one of:
26 udp - run in UDP mode
27 tcp - run in TCP mode
28 Each command, and its options are explained below. Or use xdp-traffic‐
31 gen COMMAND --help to see the options for each command.
32
35 The UDP command generates UDP traffic to a given destination IP and ei‐
36 ther a fixed destination port, or a range of port numbers. Only IPv6
37 traffic is supported, and the generated packets will have their IP hop
38 limit set to 1, so they can't be routed.
39 The syntax for the udp command is:
42 xdp-trafficgen udp [options] <ifname>
45 Where <ifname> is the name of the destination interface that packets
48 will be transmitted on. Note that the network driver of this network
49 interface must support being the target of XDP redirects (it must im‐
50 plement the ndo_xdp_xmit driver operation).
51 The supported options are:
54 -m, --dst-mac <mac addr>
57 Set the destination MAC address of generated packets. The default is to
58 generate packets with an all-zero destination MAC.
59 -M, --src-mac <mac addr>
62 Set the source MAC address of the generated packets. The default is to
63 use the MAC address of the interface packets are transmitted on.
64 -a, --dst-addr <addr>
67 Destination IP address of generated packets. The default is the link-
68 local fe80::2 address.
69 -A, --src-addr <addr>
72 Source IP address of generated packets. The default is the link-local
73 fe80::1 address.
74 -p, --dst-port <port>
77 Destination UDP port of generated packets, or the first port in the
78 range if running with --dyn-ports set. Defaults to 1.
79 -P, --src-port <port>
82 Source UDP port of generated packets. Defaults to 1.
83 -d, --dyn-ports <num ports>
86 Enable dynamic port mode where the destination port is varied over a
87 range of <num ports> starting from the --dst-port.
88 -n, --num-packets <port>
91 Number of packets to send before exiting. If not supplied, xdp-traffic‐
92 gen will keep sending packets until interrupted.
93 -t, --threads <threads>
96 Number of simultaneous threads to transmit from. Each thread will be
97 pinned to a separate CPU core if possible. Defaults to 1.
98 -I, --interval <s>
101 Output transmission statistics with this interval (in seconds).
102 -v, --verbose
105 Enable verbose logging (-vv: more verbose).
106 --version
109 Display version information and exit.
110 -h, --help
113 Display a summary of the available options
114
118 The TCP command generates dummy TCP traffic in a single TCP flow. This
119 relies on first installing an ingress XDP program on the interface used
120 to transmit on. Then, a regular TCP socket connection is established
121 from userspace, and once the handshake is completed, the XDP program
122 will take over and start generating traffic on that flow tuple. The
123 ingress XDP program will intercept ACK packets from the receiver, and
124 keep track of the receive window.
125 The traffic generator has no congestion control, and only very basic
128 retransmit tracking: in essence, any duplicate ACKs from the receiver
129 will cause the sender to reset its send sequence number to the last
130 ACKed value and restart from there. The same thing happens if no
131 progress on the window is made within two seconds. This means that the
132 traffic generator can generate a large amount of dummy traffic, but if
133 there's packet loss a lot of this can be retransmissions.
134 The syntax for the tcp command is:
137 xdp-trafficgen tcp [options] -i <ifname> <hostname>
140 Where <ifname> is the name of the destination interface that packets
143 will be transmitted on and <hostname> is the peer hostname or IP ad‐
144 dress to connect to (only IPv6 is supported). Note that the network
145 driver of this network interface must support being the target of XDP
146 redirects (it must implement the ndo_xdp_xmit driver operation).
147 The supported options are:
150 -p, --dst-port <port>
153 Connect to destination <port>. Default 10000.
154 -m, --mode <mode>
157 Load ingress XDP program in <mode>; default native (valid values: na‐
158 tive,skb,hw)
159 -n, --num-packets <port>
162 Number of packets to send before exiting. If not supplied, xdp-traffic‐
163 gen will keep sending packets until interrupted.
164 -I, --interval <s>
167 Output transmission statistics with this interval (in seconds).
168 -v, --verbose
171 Enable verbose logging (-vv: more verbose).
172 --version
175 Display version information and exit.
176 -h, --help
179 Display a summary of the available options
180
184 Please report any bugs on Github: https://github.com/xdp-project/xdp-
185 tools/issues
186
189 xdp-trafficgen and this man page were written by Toke Høiland-
190 Jørgensen.
191V1.4.1 OCTOBER 20, 2023 xdp-trafficgen(8)