[dpdk-dev] random pkt generator PMD

[Yerden Zhumabekov]

On 15.06.2016 15:49, Bruce Richardson wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 03:43:56PM +0600, Yerden Zhumabekov wrote:
>> Hello everybody,
>>
>> DPDK already got a number of PMDs for various eth devices, it even has PMD
>> emulations for backends such as pcap, sw rings etc.
>>
>> I've been thinking about the idea of having PMD which would generate mbufs
>> on the fly in some randomized fashion. This would serve goals like, for
>> example:
>>
>> 1) running tests for applications with network processing capabilities
>> without additional software packet generators;
>> 2) making performance measurements with no hw inteference;
>> 3) ability to run without root privileges, --no-pci, --no-huge, for CI
>> build, so on.
>>
>> Maybe there's no such need, and these goals may be achieved by other means
>> and this idea is flawed? Any thoughts?
> Isn't some of this already covered by the NULL PMD? Perhaps it could be extended
> or enhanced to meet some more of your requirements?
>
> /Bruce
Right, but development of various features regarding L3/L4 etc requires 
more subtle approach, like live packets, different protocol versions, 
fields manipulation. In this case some packet mangling/randomizing 
capabilities would be quite useful. Something similar to what is done in 
Pktgen, but more lightweight approach, in a same app.

I've almost made my mind :) so the next question: is there any guide on 
PMD dev? I'm looking through rte_ether.h right now, but some doc would 
be very nice.