# Flent: The FLExible Network Tester

## The Data File Format

The aggregated test data is saved in a file called `<test_name>-<date>.<title>.flent.gz` (the title part is omitted if no title is specified by the `-t` parameter). This file contains the data points generated during the test, as well as some metadata.

## The top-level object keys

version

  The file format version as an integer.

x_values

  An array of the x values for the test data (typically the time values for timeseries data).

results

  A JSON object containing the result data series. The keys are the data series names; the value for each key is an array of y values for that data series. The data array has the same length as the `x_values` array, but there may be missing data points (signified by null values).

metadata

  An object containing various data points about the test run. The metadata values are read in as configuration parameters when the data set is loaded in for further processing. Not all tests use all the parameters, but they are saved anyway.

raw_values

  An array of objects for each data series. Each element of the array contains the raw values as parsed from the test tool corresponding to that data series.

## Metadata keys

NAME

  The test name.

TITLE

  Any extra title specified by the `--title-extra` parameter when the test was run.

HOSTS

  List of the server hostnames connected to during the test.

LOCAL_HOST

  The hostname of the machine that ran the test.

LENGTH

  Test length in seconds, as specified by the `--length` parameter.

TOTAL_LENGTH

  Actual data series length, after the test has added time to the `LENGTH`.

STEP_SIZE

  Time step size granularity.

TIME

  ISO timestamp of the time the test was initiated.

NOTE

  Arbitrary text as entered with the `--note` switch when the test was run.

FLENT_VERSION

  Version of Flent that generated the data file.

IP_VERSION

  IP version used to run test (as specified by command line parameters, or auto-detected from `getaddrinfo()` if unspecified).

KERNEL_NAME

  The kernel name as reported by uname -s.

KERNEL_RELEASE

  The kernel release as reported by uname -r.

MODULE_VERSIONS

  The sha1sum of certain interesting Linux kernel modules, if available. Can be used to match test data to specific code versions, if the kernel build is instrumented to, e.g., set the build ID to a git revision.

SYSCTLS

  The values of several networking-related sysctls on the host (if available; Linux only).

EGRESS_INFO

  Interface name, qdisc, offload, driver and BQL configuration of the interface used to reach the test target. This requires that the ip binary is present on Linux, but can be extracted from route on BSD. Qdisc information requires the tc binary to be present, and offload information requires ethtool.

  If the `--remote-metadata` is used, the extended metadata info is gathered for each of the hostnames specified. This is gathered under the `REMOTE_METADATA` key in the metadata object, keyed by the hostname values passed to `--remote-metadata`. Additionally, the `REMOTE_METADATA` object will contain an object called `INGRESS_INFO` which is a duplicate of `EGRESS_INFO`, but with the destination IP exchanged for the source address of the host running flent. The assumption here is that `--remote-metadata` is used to capture metadata of a router known to be in the test path, in which case `INGRESS_INFO` will contain information about the reverse path from the router (which is ingress from the point of view of the host running flent). If the host being queried for remote metadata is off the path, the contents of `INGRESS_INFO` will probably be the same as that of `EGRESS_INFO` .

## Extended metadata

If the `--extended-metadata` switch is turned on, the following additional values are collected and stored (to the extent they are available from the platform):

IP_ADDRS

  IP addresses assigned to the machine running flent.

GATEWAYS

  IP addresses of all detected default gateways on the system, and the interfaces they are reachable through. Only available if the netstat binary is present on the system.

EGRESS_INFO

  In the `EGRESS_INFO` key, the IP address of the next-hop router and the interface MAC address are added if extended metadata is enabled.