netperfmeter(1)

NAME
netperfmeter - Network Performance Meter

SYNOPSIS
netperfmeter [Port]
netperfmeter [Destination:Port] -local=Address[,Address,...] -runtime=Seconds -config=Name -scalar=Name -vector=Name -activenodename=Description -passivenodename=Description -quiet -verbose -verbosity=Level -tcp -mptcp -sctp -udp -dccp [FLOWSPEC] [...]

DESCRIPTION
netperfmeter is a network performance meter for the UDP, TCP, MPTCP, SCTP and DCCP transport protocols. It simultaneously transmits bidirectional flows to an endpoint and measures the resulting flow bandwidths. The results are written as vector and scalar files.

ARGUMENTS
The following arguments have to be provided:

Port
    The port number for the passive side's data socket. The port number of the control socket will be port+1. Specifying a port number turns netperfmeter in passive mode, i.e. it will wait for incoming connections.

Destination:Port
    Specifies the destination endpoint to connect to. This will turn netperfmeter in active mode, i.e. it will connect to the specified remote endpoint.

local=Address[,Address,...]
    Specifies address(es) of the local endpoint. For TCP, UDP and DCCP, only the first address is used!

runtime
    Specifies the measurement runtime in seconds. After the given time span, netperfmeter will finish the measurement.

config=Name
    Specifies the name of the configuration file to write. Default is output.config.

vector=Name
    Specifies the name pattern of the vector files to write. If the suffix of this name is .bz2, the file will be BZip2-compressed on the fly. The vector name is automatically extended to name the flow vector files by adding -<active|passive>-<flow_id>-<stream_id> before the suffix. Default is vector.vec.bz2, hence the name of the vector file for flow 5, stream 2 on the passive node will be vector-passive-00000005-0002.vec.bz2.

scalar=Name
    Specifies the name pattern of the scalar files to write. If the suffix of this name is .bz2, the file will be BZip2-compressed on the fly. The scalar name is automatically extended to name the flow scalar files by adding -<active|passive>-<flow_id>-<stream_id> before the suffix. Default is scalar.vec.bz2, hence the name of the scalar file for flow 5, stream 2 on the passive node will be scalar-passive-00000005-0002.vec.bz2.

activenodename=Description
    Sets a textual description of the active node (e.g. Client).

passivenodename=Description
    Sets a textual description of the passive node (e.g. Server).

quiet
    Reduces verbosity of log output. May be specified multiple times.

verbose
    Increases verbosity of log output. May be specified multiple times.

verbosity=Level
    Sets the verbosity of the log output to a given level, from 0 (lowest) to 6 (highest).

sctp
    Establish a new SCTP association. The streams of this association must be specified by one or more FLOWSPEC specifications as following parameters.

tcp Establish a new TCP or MPTCP connection. The flow of this connection must be specified by a FLOWSPEC specification as following parameter. MPTCP support in NetPerfMeter is realized as additional "MPTCP" socket (i.e. another TCP socket, but bound to another port number and with CMT enabled). That is, for MPTCP usage, it must contain the option cmt=mptcp (see below) to usage the MPTCP socket instead of the TCP socket.

udp Establish a new UDP connection. The flow of this connection must be specified by a FLOWSPEC specification as following parameter.

dccp
    Establish a new DCCP connection. The flow of this connection must be specified by a FLOWSPEC specification as following parameter. Note, that DCCP is not available on all platforms yet. Currently, only Linux provides DCCP in its official kernel.

FLOWSPEC
    Specifies a new flow. The format is: outgoing_frame_rate:outgoing_frame_size:incoming_frame_size:incoming_frame_rate:option:... The first four parameters (outgoing_frame_rate:outgoing_frame_size:incoming_frame_size:incoming_frame_rate:option) may be substituted by the option "default", creating a flow with some more or less useful default parameters.

    outgoing_frame_rate
        The frame rate of the outgoing transfer (i.e. active node to passive node). If set to const0, the sender will be saturarted, i.e. it will try to send as much as possible.

    outgoing_frame_size
        The frame size of the outgoing transfer (i.e. active node to passive node). If set to const0, there will be *no* data transmission in this direction.

    incoming_frame_rate
        The frame rate of the incoming transfer (i.e. passive node to active node). See outgoing_frame_rate for details.

    incoming_frame_size
        The frame size of the incoming transfer (i.e. active node to passive node). See outgoing_frame_size for details.

    Possible options:

        id=Flow Identifier
            Sets an ID number for the flow. The IDs within a measurement must be unique!

        description=Description
            Sets a textual description of the flow (e.g. HTTP-Flow). Do not use spaces in the description!

        maxmsgsize=Bytes
            Splits frames into messages of at most the given number of bytes. Messages may not exceed 65535 bytes.

        defragtimeout=Milliseconds
            Messages not received within this timeout after the last successfully received message are accounted as lost. NOTE: this also happens if the transport protocol is reliable and the message is actually received later!

        unordered=Fraction
            Specifies the fraction of the messages that will be sent in unordered mode (SCTP only).

        ordered=Fraction
            Specifies the fraction of the messages that will be sent in ordered mode (SCTP only).

        reliable=Fraction
            Specifies the fraction of the messages that will be sent in reliable mode (SCTP only).

        unreliable=Fraction
            Specifies the fraction of the messages that will be sent in unreliable mode (SCTP only).

        rtx_timeout=Milliseconds
            Sets the retransmission timeout for unreliable messages (SCTP only; not available on all platforms!)

        rtx_trials=Trials
            Sets the retransmission trials for unreliable messages (SCTP only; not available on all platforms!)

        rcvbuf=Bytes
            Sets the receiver buffer size to the given number of bytes.

        sndbuf=Bytes
            Sets the sender buffer size to the given number of bytes.

        onoff=t1,t2,...
            A list of time stamps when the flow should be activated or deactivated. If onoff is given, the flow is off at startup. At t1, it will be turned on; at t2, it will be turned off, etc.. Time stamps can be given as absolute values (e.g. onoff=0,10,30 - to turn on at t=0, turn off at t=10 and turn on again at t=30 until end of measurement) or relative values (e.g. on=10,+30,+60 - to turn on at t=10, turn off at t=40 and turn on again at t=100 until end of measurement).

        error_on_abort=on|off
            By default, the active side stops with an error when a transmission tails (e.g. on connection abort). This parameter turns this behaviour on or off.

        cmt=off|cmt|cmtrpv1|cmtrpv2|like-mptcp|mptcp-like|mptcp
            Configures usage of Concurrent Multipath Transfer (CMT): off (turned off; default), cmt (independent paths), cmtrpv1 (CMT/RPv1), cmtrpv1 (CMT/RPv2), mptcp/like-mptcp/mptcp-like (MPTCP), 0-255 (custom value). Currently only supported by CMT-SCTP on FreeBSD systems and MPTCP on Linux systems. Note: CMT for MPTCP always uses MPTCP congestion control.

EXAMPLES
Some netperfmeter usage examples:

netperfmeter 9000
    Start in passive mode, i.e. accepting connections, on port 9000.

netperfmeter 172.16.255.254:9000 -vector=output.vec.bz2 -scalar=output.sca.bz2 -sctp const5:exp1000:const3:exp500:description="Alpha":onoff=+10 const5:exp1000:const3:exp500:description="Beta":onoff=+30 -tcp const5:exp1000:const3:exp500:description="Gamma":onoff=+60 -runtime=300
    Start in active mode, i.e. establish connection to 172.16.255.254, port 9000. Frames will be segmented into messages of up to 4096 bytes. Write vectors to output.vec.bz2 (BZip2-compressed). Write scalars to output.sca.bz2 (BZip2-compressed). Establish SCTP association. At t=10s, start flow "Alpha" as first stream of this association, using a frame rate of 5 (constant) and average frame size of 1000 bytes (negative exponential distribution) for the outgoing data and a frame rate of 3 (constant) and average frame size of 500 bytes (negative exponential distribution) for the incoming data. At t=30s, start flow "Beta" as second stream on the SCTP association (same parameters as flow "Alpha"). Start TCP connection. At t=60s, start flow "Gamma" over the TCP connection (same parameters as flow "Alpha"). At t=300s, stop the measurement.

AUTHORS
Thomas Dreibholz
http://www.iem.uni-due.de/~dreibh/netperfmeter
mailto://dreibh@iem.uni-due.de