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Network Measurements

This document describes the network performance tools integrated into the E2E layer.

Architecture​

The controller's TrafficApp supports running and managing ping and iPerf sessions, and dispatches commands to each participating minion's TrafficApp to start or stop these processes. The controller is responsible for maintaining the state of each session in progress. When a session terminates, the participating minion(s) will send the console output of the process to the controller, which then forwards the output to the original sender; at this point, the controller discards the session state.

If possible, the controller can optionally use a link-local IPv6 address instead of a global address for the destination (e.g. to support higher data rates). These link-local addresses are automatically populated by the controller using adjacency information from Open/R.

Commands​

All supported commands are described in the sections below.

Ping​

The controller supports the ping6 utility and most of its standard options (defined in thrift::PingOptions).

User OperationCommand
Start PingSTART_PING
Stop PingSTOP_PING
Get Ping StatusGET_PING_STATUS

iPerf​

The controller supports the iperf3 utility and most of its standard options (defined in thrift::IperfOptions).

User OperationCommand
Start iPerfSTART_IPERF
Stop iPerfSTOP_IPERF
Get iPerf StatusGET_IPERF_STATUS

iPerf requires running both a server and client (unlike ping, which has a client only). The steps to initiate a session, in response to a START_IPERF operation, are shown below.

  1. Controller - The controller issues a START_IPERF_SERVER command to the minion serving as the iPerf destination.
  2. Minion (server) - The minion chooses an unused port in the range [70001, 70050], then forks an iPerf server process and waits for it to initialize. The iperf3 command is called with --forceflush to prevent output buffering. When the minion has read the first byte of output, it sends a START_IPERF_SERVER_RESP notification to the controller containing the iPerf server port it used.
  3. Controller - The controller issues a START_IPERF_CLIENT command to the minion serving as the iPerf source. At this point, the session gets recorded.
  4. Minion (client) - The minion forks an iPerf client process.
  5. Minions (both) - When the iPerf process exits, each minion sends the output to the controller via the IPERF_OUTPUT message.
  6. Controller - The controller forwards each IPERF_OUTPUT message to the original sender. The iPerf session is deleted upon receiving either message.