P4TG: 1 Tb/s Traffic Generation for Ethernet/IP Networks

Abstract

In this work, we present P4TG, a P4-based traffic generator (TG) which runs on the programmable Intel Tofino $^{\mathrm{ TM}}$ ASIC. In generation mode, P4TG is capable of generating traffic up to 1 Tb/s split across 10x 100 Gb/s ports. Thereby it measures rates directly in the data plane. Generated traffic may be fed back from the output to the input ports, possibly through other equipment, to record packet loss, packet reordering, and sampled inter-arrival times (IATs) and round trip times (RTTs). In analysis mode, P4TG measures rates on the input ports, samples IATs, and forwards traffic through its output ports. Existing software or P4-based traffic generators either lack the required accuracy, do not support high data rates, or do not provide sufficiently integrated measurement capabilities. We compare P4TG’s performance with the one of the software TG TRex and the hardware TG EXFO. P4TG’s code is provided on GitHub.

Keywords

• P4
• software-defined networks
• traffic generation