tcpreplay for testing network stacks

[Chris Johns]

On 29/4/21 3:00 am, Vijay Kumar Banerjee wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 10:49 AM Christian Mauderer <oss at c-mauderer.de> wrote:
>>
>> Hello Vijay,
>>
>> On 28/04/2021 18:25, Vijay Kumar Banerjee wrote:
>>> On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 12:41 AM Christian MAUDERER
>>> <christian.mauderer at embedded-brains.de> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hello Vijay,
>>>>
>>>> Am 27.04.21 um 18:48 schrieb Vijay Kumar Banerjee:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> I came across the tcpreplay tool and it looks like a nice tool for
>>>>> testing the network stacks. It can be used to capture network traffic
>>>>> and then play it back, this will help with testing the network packets
>>>>> from different network stacks.
>>>>
>>>> Sounds like an interesting tool.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> My proposal is to add the tcpreply as a host-side tool in rtems-tools
>>>>> and use it with the network interface where the network application is
>>>>> running. The only issue that I see with the whole idea is that the
>>>>> tcpreplay is GPLv3 licensed. Will that be compatible for rtems-tools?
>>>>> The github repository says that it's compatible with UNIX and Windows
>>>>> with cygwin.
>>>>
>>>> The more difficult problem could be the missing Mac and FreeBSD support.
>>>>
>>> That's a good point.
>>>
>>>> What would be the advantage of having tcpreply in rtems-tools? Do you
>>>> want to use it for automated tests?
>>>>
>>> Yes. I was thinking about capturing the pcap format packets in
>>> temporary files and then running tcpreplay to check for any network
>>> issues. I haven't planned exactly how that will be implemented but
>>> roughly this is the idea.
>>>
>>
>> In what form would you automate that? Some test case in RTEMS or some
>> special repository? I assume that you need some special setup for
>> specific (simulator) targets anyway, don't you? So a general purpose
>> test for all targets will be difficult.
>>
> I was not thinking about a special repository. It would be nice to
> have it as test case or as an rtems-test config where the script will
> capture the packets and feed them to tcpreplay.

Capture from where? How do these traces deal with the differences in networks?
Does tcpreply rewrite various fields, for example a DHCP server response? I
suspect it does not.

Tcpreplay may work out to be a good tool we use but I think there needs to be
some more ground work to see if you can "virtualize" a network. If you can do
this you control the arena the devices operate in and all the characteristics
and then play back would be possible and portable.

VDE may be an interesting part of this. I seem to remember it has a DHCP server
so if you use this with a tap that VDE manages rtems-test could use that interface.

A tricky area to look into is if a VDE port can map to a physical port? If this
can be done you could mix simulation and real hardware and that would be amazing
to have.

>> If it is about testing the stacks and not the drivers, it might would be
>> possible to write some kind of dummy network driver that can read pcap
>> format (or some other raw packet format) directly and hands the packets
>> to the network stack. Such a driver maybe could even provide packets to
>> a test frame again so that you can check responses.
>>
> The objective is to test the stacks. The dummy network driver sounds
> like a great idea, thanks. I'll explore this direction more.

I prefer real drivers are used as it lets us extend testing to VLAN and
multicast (driver hashes and filter testing).

A solution needs to find a suitable lowest common denominator. This means
hardware and simulation and possibly the different networking stack options we have.

Chris