flowgrind - advanced TCP traffic generator for Linux, FreeBSD, and
Mac OS X
flowgrind is an advanced TCP traffic generator for testing
and benchmarking Linux, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X TCP/IP stacks. In contrast to
other performance measurement tools it features a distributed architecture,
where throughput and other metrics are measured between arbitrary flowgrind
server processes, flowgrind daemon flowgrindd(1).
Flowgrind measures besides goodput (throughput), the application
layer interarrival time (IAT) and round-trip time (RTT), blockcount and
network transactions/s. Unlike most cross-platform testing tools, flowgrind
collects and reports the TCP metrics returned by the TCP_INFO socket option,
which are usually internal to the TCP/IP stack. On Linux and FreeBSD this
includes among others the kernel's estimation of the end-to-end RTT, the
size of the TCP congestion window (CWND) and slow start threshold
(SSTHRESH).
Flowgrind has a distributed architecture. It is split into two
components: the flowgrind daemon, flowgrindd(1), and the
flowgrind controller. Using the controller, flows between any two
systems running the flowgrind daemon can be setup (third party tests). At
regular intervals during the test the controller collects and displays the
measured results from the daemons. It can run multiple flows at once with
the same or different settings and individually schedule every one. Test and
control connection can optionally be diverted to different interfaces.
The traffic generation itself is either bulk transfer,
rate-limited, or sophisticated request/response tests. Flowgrind uses
libpcap to automatically dump traffic for qualitative analysis.
They are two important groups of options: controller options and
flow options. Like the name suggests, controller options apply globally and
potentially affect all flows, while flow-specific options only apply to the
subset of flows selected using the -F option.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short
options too.
- -h,
--help[=WHAT]
- display help and exit. Optional WHAT can either be 'socket' for help on
socket options or 'traffic' traffic generation help
- -v, --version
- print version information and exit
- -c, --show-colon=TYPE[,TYPE]...
- display intermediated interval report column TYPE in output. Allowed
values for TYPE are: 'interval', 'through', 'transac', 'iat', 'kernel'
(all show per default), and 'blocks', 'rtt', 'delay' (optional)
- -d, --debug
- increase debugging verbosity. Add option multiple times to increase the
verbosity
- -e,
--dump-prefix=PRE
- prepend prefix PRE to dump filename (default: "flowgrind-")
- -i,
--report-interval=#.#
- reporting interval, in seconds (default: 0.05s)
- --log-file[=FILE]
- write output to logfile FILE (default: flowgrind-'timestamp'.log)
- -m
- report throughput in 2**20 bytes/s (default: 10**6 bit/s)
- -n, --flows=#
- number of test flows (default: 1)
- -o
- overwrite existing log files (default: don't)
- -p
- don't print symbolic values (like INT_MAX) instead of numbers
- -q, --quiet
- be quiet, do not log to screen (default: off)
- -s,
--tcp-stack=TYPE
- don't determine unit of source TCP stacks automatically. Force unit to
TYPE, where TYPE is 'segment' or 'byte'
- -w
- write output to logfile (same as --log-file)
All flows have two endpoints, a source and a destination. The
distinction between source and destination endpoints only affects connection
establishment. When starting a flow the destination endpoint listens on a
socket and the source endpoint connects to it. For the actual test this
makes no difference, both endpoints have exactly the same capabilities. Data
can be sent in either direction and many settings can be configured
individually for each endpoint.
Some of these options take the flow endpoint as argument, denoted
by 'x' in the option syntax. 'x' needs to be replaced with either 's' for
the source endpoint, 'd' for the destination endpoint or 'b' for both
endpoints. To specify different values for each endpoints, separate them by
comma. For instance -W s=8192,d=4096 sets the advertised window to
8192 at the source and 4096 at the destination.
- -A x
- use minimal response size needed for RTT calculation
(same as -G s=p:C:40)
- -B x=#
- set requested sending buffer, in bytes
- -C x
- stop flow if it is experiencing local congestion
- -D
x=DSCP
- DSCP value for type-of-service (TOS) IP header byte
- -E
- enumerate bytes in payload instead of sending zeros
- -F
#[,#]...
- Flow options following this option apply only to the given flow IDs.
Useful in combination with -n to set specific options for certain
flows. Numbering starts with 0, so -F 1 refers to the second flow.
With -1 all flow can be referred
- -G
x=(q|p|g):(C|U|E|N|L|P|W):#1:[#2]
- activate stochastic traffic generation and set parameters according to the
used distribution. For additional information see section 'Traffic
Generation Option'
- -H
x=HOST[/CONTROL[:PORT]]
- test from/to HOST. Optional argument is the address and port for the
CONTROL connection to the same host. An endpoint that isn't specified is
assumed to be localhost
- -J #
- use random seed # (default: read /dev/urandom)
- -I
- enable one-way delay calculation (no clock synchronization)
- -L
- call connect() on test socket immediately before starting to send data
(late connect). If not specified the test connection is established in the
preparation phase before the test starts
- -M x
- dump traffic using libpcap. flowgrindd(1) must be run as root
- -N
- shutdown() each socket direction after test flow
- -O
x=OPT
- set socket option OPT on test socket. For additional information see
section 'Socket Options'
- -P x
- do not iterate through select() to continue sending in case block size did
not suffice to fill sending queue (pushy)
- -Q
- summarize only, no intermediated interval reports are computed
(quiet)
- -R
x=#.#(z|k|M|G)(b|B)
- send at specified rate per second, where: z = 2**0, k = 2**10, M = 2**20,
G = 2**30, and b = bits/s (default), B = bytes/s
- -S x=#
- set block (message) size, in bytes (same as -G s=q:C:#)
- -T
x=#.#
- set flow duration, in seconds (default: s=10,d=0)
- -U x=#
- set application buffer size, in bytes (default: 8192) truncates values if
used with stochastic traffic generation
- -W x=#
- set requested receiver buffer (advertised window), in bytes
- -Y
x=#.#
- set initial delay before the host starts to send, in seconds
Via option -G flowgrind supports stochastic traffic
generation, which allows to conduct besides normal bulk also advanced
rate-limited and request-response data transfers.
The stochastic traffic generation option -G takes the flow
endpoint as argument, denoted by 'x' in the option syntax. 'x' needs to be
replaced with either 's' for the source endpoint, 'd' for the destination
endpoint or 'b' for both endpoints. However, please note that bidirectional
traffic generation can lead to unexpected results. To specify different
values for each endpoints, separate them by comma.
-G
x=(q|p|g):(C|U|E|N|L|P|W):#1:[#2]
- Flow parameter:
- q
- request size (in bytes)
- p
- response size (in bytes)
- g
- request interpacket gap (in seconds)
- Distributions:
- C
- constant (#1: value, #2: not used)
- U
- uniform (#1: min, #2: max)
- E
- exponential (#1: lamba - lifetime, #2: not used)
- N
- normal (#1: mu - mean value, #2: sigma_square -
variance)
- L
- lognormal (#1: zeta - mean, #2: sigma - std dev)
- P
- pareto (#1: k - shape, #2: x_min - scale)
- W
- weibull (#1: lambda - scale, #2: k - shape)
- Advanced distributions like weibull are only available if flowgrind is
compiled with libgsl support.
- -U #
- specify a cap for the calculated values for request and response sizes,
needed because the advanced distributed values are unbounded, but we need
to know the buffersize (it's not needed for constant values or uniform
distribution). Values outside the bounds are recalculated until a valid
result occurs but at most 10 times (then the bound value is used)
Flowgrind allows to set the following standard and non-standard
socket options via option -O.
All socket options take the flow endpoint as argument, denoted by
'x' in the option syntax. 'x' needs to be replaced with either 's' for the
source endpoint, 'd' for the destination endpoint or 'b' for both endpoints.
To specify different values for each endpoints, separate them by comma.
Moreover, it is possible to repeatedly pass the same endpoint in order to
specify multiple socket options.
- flowgrind
- testing localhost IPv4 TCP performance with default settings, same as
flowgrind -H b=127.0.0.1 -T s=10,d=0. The flowgrind daemon needs to be run
on localhost
- flowgrind -H b=::1/127.0.0.1
- same as above, but testing localhost IPv6 TCP performance with default
settings
- flowgrind -H s=host1,d=host2
- bulk TCP transfer between host1 and host2. Host1 acts as source, host2 as
destination endpoint. Both endpoints need to be run the flowgrind daemon.
The default flow options are used, with a flow duration of 10 seconds and
a data stream from host1 to host2
- flowgrind -H s=host1,d=host2 -T s=0,d=10
- same as the above but instead with a flow sending data for 10 seconds from
host2 to host1
- flowgrind -n 2 -F 0 -H s=192.168.0.1,d=192.168.0.69 -F 1 -H
s=10.0.0.1,d=10.0.0.2
- setup two parallel flows, first flow between 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.69,
second flow between 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.0.2
- flowgrind -p -H s=10.0.0.100/192.168.1.100,d=10.0.0.101/192.168.1.101
-A s
- setup one flow between 10.0.0.100 and 10.0.0.101 and use 192.168.1.x IP
addresses for controll traffic. Activate minimal response for RTT
calculation
- flowgrind -i 0.001 -T s=1 | egrep ^S | gnuplot -persist -e 'plot
"-" using 3:5 with lines title "Throughput" '
- setup one flow over loopback device and plot the data of the sender with
the help of gnuplot
- flowgrind -G s=q:C:400 -G s=p:N:2000:50 -G s=g:U:0.005:0.01 -U
32000
-
-G s=q:C:400 : use constant request size of 400 bytes
-G s=p:N:2000:50 : use normal distributed response size with mean 2000 bytes
and variance 50
-G s=g:U:0.005:0.01 : use uniform distributed interpacket gap with min
0.005s and and max 10ms
-U 32000: truncate block sizes at 32 kbytes (needed for normal distribution)
The following examples demonstrate how flowgrind's traffic
generation capability can be used. These have been incorporated in different
tests for flowgrind and have been proven meaningful. However, as Internet
traffic is diverse, there is no guarantee that these are appropriate in
every situation.
- This scenario is based on the
work in
http://www.3gpp2.org/Public_html/specs/C.R1002-0_v1.0_041221.pdf.
- flowgrind -M s -G s=q:C:350 -G s=p:L:9055:115.17 -U 100000
-
-r 42: use random seed 42 to make measurements reproducible
-M s: dump traffic on sender side
-G s=q:C:350 : use constant requests size 350 bytes
-G s=p:L:9055:115 : use lognormal distribution with mean 9055 and variance
115 for response size
-U 100000: Truncate response at 100 kbytes
For this scenario we recommend to focus on RTT (lower values are
better) and Network Transactions/s as metric (higher values are better).
- This scenario emulates a
telnet session.
- flowgrind -G s=q:U:40:10000 -G s=q:U:40:10000 -O b=TCP_NODELAY
-
-G s=q:U:40:10000 -G s=q:U:40:10000 : use uniform distributed request and
response size between 40B and 10kB
-O b=TCP_NODELAY: set socket options TCP_NODELAY as used by telnet
applications
For this scenario RTT (lower is better) and Network Transactions/s
are useful metrics (higher is better).
- This scenario emulates a
video stream transfer with a bitrate of 800 kbit/s.
- flowgrind -G s=q:C:800 -G s=g:N:0.008:0.001
- Use normal distributed interpacket gap with mean 0.008 and a small
variance (0.001). In conjunction with a request size of 800 bytes an
average bitrate of approx 800 kbit/s is achieved. The variance is added to
emulate a variable bitrate like it's used in todays video codecs.
For this scenario the IAT (lower is better) and minimal throughput
(higher is better) are interesting metrics.
- #
- flow endpoint, either 'S' for source or 'D' for destination
- ID
- numerical flow identifier
- begin and
end
- boundaries of the measurement interval in seconds. The time shown is the
elapsed time since receiving the RPC message to start the test from the
daemons point of view
- through
- transmitting goodput of the flow endpoint during this measurement
interval, measured in Mbit/s (default) or MB/s (-m)
- transac
- number of successfully received response blocks per second (we call it
network transactions/s)
- requ/resp
- number of request and response block sent during this measurement interval
(column disabled by default)
- IAT
- block inter-arrival time (IAT). Together with the minimum and maximum the
arithmetic mean for that specific measurement interval is displayed. If no
block is received during report interval, 'inf' is displayed.
- DLY and
RTT
- 1-way and 2-way block delay respectively the block latency and the block
round-trip time (RTT). For both delays the minimum and maximum encountered
values in that measurement interval are displayed together with the
arithmetic mean. If no block, respectively block acknowledgment is arrived
during that report interval, 'inf' is displayed. Both, the 1-way and 2-way
block delay are disabled by default (see option -I and -A).
All following TCP specific metrics are obtained from the kernel
through the TCP_INFO socket option at the end of every report
interval. The sampling rate can be changed via option -i.
- cwnd
(tcpi_cwnd)
- size of TCP congestion window (CWND) in number of segments (Linux) or
bytes (FreeBSD)
- ssth
(tcpi_snd_sshtresh)
- size of the slow-start threshold in number of segments (Linux) or bytes
(FreeBSD)
- uack
(tcpi_unacked)
- number of currently unacknowledged segments, i.e., number of segments in
flight (FlightSize) (Linux only)
- sack
(tcpi_sacked)
- number of selectively acknowledged segments (Linux only)
- lost
(tcpi_lost)
- number of segments assumed lost (Linux only)
- retr
(tcpi_retrans)
- number of unacknowledged retransmitted segments (Linux only)
- tret
(tcpi_retransmits)
- number of retransmissions triggered by a retransmission timeout (RTO)
(Linux only)
- fack
(tcpi_fackets)
- number of segments between SND.UNA and the highest selectively
acknowledged sequence number (SND.FACK) (Linux only)
- reor
(tcpi_reordering)
- segment reordering metric. The Linux kernel can detect and cope with
reordering without significant loss of performance if the distance a
segment gets displaced does not exceed the reordering metric (Linux
only)
- rtt (tcpi_rtt) and
rttvar (tcpi_rttvar)
- TCP round-trip time and its variance given in ms
- rto (tcpi_rto)
- the retransmission timeout given in ms
- bkof
(tcpi_backoff)
- number of RTO backoffs (Linux only)
- ca state
(tcpi_ca_state)
- internal state of the TCP congestion control state machine as implemented
in the Linux kernel. Can be one of open, disorder,
cwr, recovery or loss (Linux only)
- Open
- is the normal state. It indicates that no duplicate acknowledgment (ACK)
is received and no segment is considered lost
- Disorder
- is entered upon the reception of the first consecutive duplicate ACK or
selective acknowledgment (SACK)
- CWR
- is entered when a notification from Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN)
is received
- Recovery
- is entered when three duplicate ACKs or a equivalent number of SACKs are
received. In this state congestion control and loss recovery procedures
like Fast Retransmit and Fast Recovery (RFC 5861) are executed
- Loss
- is entered if the RTO expires. Again congestion control and loss recovery
procedures are executed
- smss and
pmtu
- sender maximum segment size and path maximum transmission unit in bytes
- status
- state of the flow inside flowgrind for diagnostic purposes. It is a tuple
of two values, the first for sending and the second for receiving. Ideally
the states of both the source and destination endpoints of a flow should
be symmetrical but since they are not synchronized they may not change at
the same time. The possible values are:
- c
- Direction completed sending/receiving
- d
- Waiting for initial delay
- f
- Fault state
- l
- Active state, nothing yet transmitted or received
- n
- Normal activity, some data got transmitted or received
- o
- Flow has zero duration in that direction, no data is going to be
exchanged
Flowgrind was original started by Daniel Schaffrath. The
distributed measurement architecture and advanced traffic generation were
later on added by Tim Kosse and Christian Samsel. Currently, flowgrind is
developed and maintained by Arnd Hannemann and Alexander Zimmermann.
The development and maintenance of flowgrind is primarily done via
github <https://github.com/flowgrind/flowgrind>. Please report
bugs via the issue webpage
<https://github.com/flowgrind/flowgrind/issues>.
Output of flowgrind is gnuplot compatible, so you can
easily plot flowlogs flowgrind's output (aka flowlogs)