What is trafgen?

trafgen is a fast, zero-copy network traffic generator for debugging, performance evaluation, and fuzz-testing. trafgen utilizes the packet (7) socket interface of Linux which postpones complete control over packet data and packet headers into the user space.

What is packet switching?

Packet switching is a method of routing and grouping the data as packets to transfer in a channel, where the packet channel can be made available for the next transfer in network traffic. It basically occupies the channel in traffic, so that the packets containing can be transferred to the routed address in the network.

How does trafgen compare to pktgen?

On Gigabit Ethernet, trafgen has a comparable performance to pktgen, the built-in Linux kernel traffic generator, except that trafgen is more flexible in terms of packet configuration possibilities.

How many processes does trafgen start at once?

By default, trafgen starts as many processes as available CPUs, pins each of them to their respective CPU and sets up the ring buffer each in their own process space after having compiled a list of packets to transmit.