Overview

I wanted to perform a load test with short packets, so I tried using Pktgen-DPDK.

It is necessary to enable IOMMU beforehand. IOMMU Activation Memo

Environment

Installing Required Packages

• Install dependencies

  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install -y git build-essential libnuma-dev python3-pyelftools linux-headers-$(uname -r) meson ninja-build
  

Building and Installing DPDK

• Download the DPDK library

  • DPDK Download I chose to use the latest LTS version, 23.11.1

  wget https://fast.dpdk.org/rel/dpdk-23.11.1.tar.xz
  tar xf dpdk-23.11.1.tar.xz
  cd dpdk-stable-23.11.1
  

• Build DPDK

  meson setup build
  ninja -C build
  

• Install

  ninja -C build install
  ldconfig
  

Configuring Hugepages

• Configure hugepages DPDK uses large memory pages (hugepages) to achieve high performance.

  echo "vm.nr_hugepages=1024" > /etc/sysctl.d/90-hugapage.conf
  sysctl --system
  

Building and Installing Pktgen-DPDK

• Pktgen-DPDK

  git clone https://github.com/pktgen/Pktgen-DPDK.git
  cd Pktgen-DPDK
  

• Build

  meson setup build
  ninja -C build
  

• Install

  ninja -C build install
  

Binding Network Interfaces

• Check network interfaces

  dpdk-devbind.py --status
  
  Network devices using kernel driver
  ===================================
  0000:07:00.0 'RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller 8168' if=enp7s0 drv=r8169 unused=
  0000:09:00.0 '82599ES 10-Gigabit SFI/SFP+ Network Connection 10fb' if=enp9s0f0 drv=ixgbe unused=
  0000:09:00.1 '82599ES 10-Gigabit SFI/SFP+ Network Connection 10fb' if=enp9s0f1 drv=ixgbe unused=
  

• Bind to vfio-pci

  dpdk-devbind.py --bind=vfio-pci 0000:09:00.1
  

• If you get Error: Driver 'vfio-pci' is not loaded. Load the vfio-pci driver

  modprobe vfio-pci
  

• Verify binding

  dpdk-devbind.py --status
  Network devices using DPDK-compatible driver
  ============================================
  0000:09:00.1 '82599ES 10-Gigabit SFI/SFP+ Network Connection 10fb' drv=vfio-pci unused=ixgbe
  

  It’s OK if drv=vfio-pci

Using Pktgen-DPDK

• Start Pktgen-DPDK

  pktgen -l 0-1 -n 2 --proc-type auto --socket-mem 512 -- -P -m "[1-2].0"
  

• DPDK options

  • -l 0-1
    • Use logical cores 0-1 for DPDK
  • -n 2
    • Use 2 memory channels
  • –proc-type auto
    • Automatically determine the process type
  • –socket-mem 512
    • Allocate 512MB to socket 0

• pktgen options

  • -P
    • Enable promiscuous mode
  • -m “[1-2].0”
    • Specify core allocation for each port. In this case, assign ports 1 and 2 to core 0.

Sending Packets

reset 0
set 0 dst mac XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX // Destination MAC address
set 0 dst ip 192.168.3.2        // Destination IP address
set 0 src ip 192.168.3.1/24     // Source IP address
set 0 size 64                   // Payload size
start 0

Conclusion

With this setup, you should be able to send around 10Mpps of short packets from the NIC.
This can simulate a DDoS-like situation! I tried using Pktgen-DPDK for this purpose.