These are the Release Notes for Revision 2.7.0 of netperf:
*) Add bits/s (-f b) and Bytes/s (-f B) as selectable throughput
units. This may make life easier for folks doing post-processing of
things like interim results.
*) Miscelaneous fixes
*) Much of the now-seeming kruft for things peripheral to netperf's
core mission - have been removed though the code itself remains in
the repository. So, things like looking-up egress interface,
driver/slot information etc have been disabled in a manner
requiring more than just a ./configure to bring-back.
It wasn't clear those features were being used. This is a test of
that hypothesis.
These are the Release Notes for Revision 2.6.0 of netperf:
*) Initial pass at support for --enable-intervals (WANT_INTERVALS) for
Windows, courtesy of Jonathan Cook.
*) When in demo mode (./configure --enable-demo and a global -D
<interval> option netperf will make sure it emits "one last
interval result" when the test is terminated. This should assist
when post-processing results through the likes of rrdtool when
there is a slow-down in the performance just at the end that would
have stretched the interval to beyond the test termination.
*) A fix to have the AF_UNIX tests realize that the value for "take
the system default" socket buffer size became -1 years ago. Bug
found by Eric Dumazet.
*) Include a patch from Dave Taht to enable symbolic manipulation of
IP_TOS values.
*) Include a patch from Sachar Raindel to enable the omni tests to get
ENOBUFS under Linux when the socket buffer is larger than the tx
queue of the egress interface. This will help preclude netperf's
reporting a larger than link-rate send-side figure.
*) Fix a problem with late checking of the return from select() in
src/netserver.c. Reported by Waqar Sheikh.
*) A new global -Z option has been added to netperf and netserver.
This takes as an argument a passphrase. In the case of netserver
it will expect a control message with the passphrase as the first
thing it receives on the control connection. If netserver does not
receive a control message with the passphrase it will close the
control connection and move-on. If the netserver receives a
control message with a passprhase when it is not lookign for one,
it will be ignored. There is at present a 20 second timeout on the
attempted receipt of the request message. In the case of netperf,
the passphrase will be the first thing sent on the control
connection. There is no response to a passphrase control message.
*) Demo mode output format will now track the omni output format. So,
if the omni ouput format is CSV then the interim results will be
emitted in csv. Likewise for keyval. If the mode is human (default
and test-specific -O) then the output remains unchanged. Keyval
output includes the count of interval, with a mind towards being
able to source it in shells and whatnot. Subject to change without
notice.
*) A patch to correctly handle IPv6 addresses in the control messages,
courtesy of Bjoern Zeeb.
*) The global -F option can now be used specify a local and/or remote
fill file.
*) It is now possible to set/get the TCP congestion control algorithm
being used by either end of the test connection when using the omni
code. The output selectors are LOCAL_CONG_CONTROL and
REMOTE_CONG_CONTROL and setting is via the test-specific -K option.
*) Stop leaking file descriptors when looking-up probable egress
interface names and I/O slot numbers.
*) The global -Y option can be used to set IP_TOS on those platforms
which support it. Since this is specific to IP (v4 or v6) it may
move to a test-specific otion in the future. It is presently
global for foolish consistency with the -y option to set
SO_PRIORITY.
*) The global -y option can be used to set SO_PRIORITY on those
platforms which support it. Based on patches from Amir Vidai.
*) The control message size has been increased from 256 bytes to 512
bytes. THIS WILL BREAK COMPATABILITY WITH PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF
NETPERF. However, we need more room on the pinhead on which the
angels dance.
*) Make the "sum" field of the histogram structure a 64 bit int to
avoid having it wrap-around on tests where the sum of all the
measured latencies was larger than 31 bits. This was causing
statistics like stddev to go negative in some cases.
*) If the time delta between two events is negative, do not bother
doing any math with it in the histogram/statistics code, just
increment the ridiculous count and move-on.
*) Fixed a bug which caused local transport retransmissions to be
reported as -1 even though the getsockopt() call was
successful. (Linux). Later included remote transport
retransmissions.
*) The src/nettest_omni.c and re-written src/netserver.c code are now
known to have compiled under Windows 7 x64 with the Microsoft
WDK. There remains a timing issue with confidence intervals which
is yet to be addressed, and may have been there for ages. Netserver
has been run as a non-spawning (-f) server, netperf has been run,
both have run "classic" and "omni" tests.
These are the Release Notes for Revision 2.5.0 of netperf:
*) Add a new -N option to netserver which will suppress all creation
of debug files and so debugging output. While this would put a
serious crimp in debugging a problem in netserver, it will enable
folks using small embedded systems to avoid soaking-up their /tmp
filesystem with clutter.
*) A refactoring and partial re-write of the src/netserver.c code to
untangle years of accumulated spaghetti code. Included is the
ability to not daemonize netserver when launched from the
command-line (-D) and also to not fork/spawn child processes upon
the acceptance of a control connection (-f). Combined, the two
options will cause netserver to remain in the forground and not
spawn children - in effect netserver will handle only one test at a
time.
*) As it has been two years since the defect in Solaris getaddrinfo()
was submitted, it should be the case that a fix is available, so it
should no longer be necessary to "hide" the "Hey your platform's
getaddrinfo() call is buggy" warning. Consequently, it is no
longer being suppressed.
*) A new global command line option - -S - has been added to enable
setting of SO_KEEPALIVE on the data socket. This will affect the
netperf side of the "classic" netperf tests, and will also affect
the netserver side of an "omni" or migrated classic test as only
the control message for the omni tests has the requisite flags
field to communicate the desire to set SO_KEEPALIVE.
Ostensibly, this may help when netperf is (ab)used in functional
testing situations and netservers end-up orphaned and out in the
cold because their corresponding netperfs went away and the
notification was lost amid the roar of traffic over-saturating the
interconnect(s).
The default is to behave as before - SO_KEEPALIVE not set.
*) Base on the frequency at which the author has used the
functionality, the default for --enable-burst is now "yes." To
disable support for burst mode one must now include a
--enable-burst=no when performing the ./configure prior to
compiling the bits.
*) The output of the -D global command line option (./configure
--enable-demo) has been enhanced to include seconds and
milliseconds since the epoch as returned by a gettimeofday() call
with a null pointer for the timezone. This is in support of being
able to easily shove interim results into an rrdtool Round-Robin
Database (RRD).
*) The "omni" tests will be compiled-in by default, and WANT_MIGRATION
is the default. One must ./configure with --enable-omni=no to
disable this.
*) When ./configured with --enable-intervals and intervals are
actually used, the round-trip latency reported by an omni (or
migrated classic) request/response test should better reflect
reality rather than the length of the pacing interval. It and the
MEAN_LATENCY from the histogram and -j output will still differ
slightly and probably always will.
*) The histogram code has been enhanced to track more than one latency
at a time and so --enable-histogram and --enable-burst are now
compatible - for the omni tests or migrated "classic" tests only
however. This change was inspired/instigated by Jim Gettys and his
work on overly-large queues of buffers
*) WANT_MIGRATION is enabled when one specifies --enable-omni on the
configure command line.
*) Massage and encorporate a patch from Google that enables
randomization of the IP addresses used in a test. An optional mask
length in the standard '/' notation can be added to the end of the
IP/name in the test-specific -H or -L options of an Omni test.
*) Massage and include a DEBUG_LOG_FILE patch for Android from
Josselin Costanzi
*) Add intial attempt to report Slot ID on HP-UX 11.31.
*) Add global -s option to cause omni tests to pause between
setting-up the test and actually starting it. pause is in seconds.
Poor man's way to (attempt to) avoid issues when starting many,
Many, MANY concurrent netperf tests. Based on patches from Google.
*) Additional timing statistics will be kept by the omni tests when
the global "-j" option is specified. The additional statistics are
min, max, mean, stddev and the 50th, 90th and 99th percentiles on
the timings measured by histograms. Based on patches from Google.
*) Add a workaround to get Linux to report TX queue drops in a
UDP_STREAM test when the socket buffer size is larger than the
TX queue. Provided by Andrew Gallatin.
*) Fix the configure script to know it does not have to look for an
SCTP library on FreeBSD 8.X
*) The BSD and "omni" tests now have a test-specific -R option which
is a boolean controlling whether or not SO_DONTROUTE will be set on
the data socket. By default, any unidirectional UDP test will have
SO_DONTROUTE set unless a -R 1 option is given. All other tests
(including UDP request/response tests) will not have SO_DONTROUTE
set unless a -R 0 option is given. This is put into place to make
it take longer for blithering idiots to shoot themselves in the
foot by running tests on setups they shouldn't.
*) At least the beginnings of support for RDS, based on a circa 2007
patch against 2.4.2 by Vladimir Sokolovsky. Rather than create the
"RDS_STREAM" test of his patch, the intention this time around is
to enable RDS for the "omni" tests by using an omni test-specific
-T rds specifyer for the "transport" to use.
*) Missing fprintf format statements provided by Bruno Cornec
*) Numerous cleanups from Jose Pedro Oliveira
*) Fixes to allow netperf -H ::1 to work without having to add -6 or
an AF_INET6 -L option
These are the Release Notes for Revision 2.4.5 of netperf:
Things changed in this release:
*) Fixes for Linux procstat-based CPU utilization on newer kernels
from Andrew Gallatin.
*) Fix for a TCP_RR hang from Michael Shuldman
*) Compilation cleanups for MingW cnd MSDOS (djgpp) ourtesy of Gisle
Vanem.
*) Changes to enable compilation and building of netperf for
VMware. Kudos to the person who did the first port, I will be happy
to name that person when told it is OK :)
*) Fixes from Adam Bidema for launching netserver children when the
path to netserver.exe is very long.
*) For the first time, netperf2 has a dependency, albeit optional, on
another non-base-os bit of code - libsmbios under Linux. It will
attept to detect this at compile time and use it to report the
system model name in an omni test. If libsmbios is there we will
try to use it, otherwise we will not. If the associated include
file is also there (eg the -dev package in apt-get-speak), we will
use it to get the prototype for SMBIOSGetSystemName, otherwise we
make a guess as to the prototype for SMBIOSGetSystemName(), which
is the only call we make to libsmbios.
*) Fixes for BSD CPU utilization to deal with different BSD variants
using different types. Courtesy of Simon Burge <simonb@NetBSD.org>
*) The "omni" suite has been added on an experimental basis. If it
works-out then many of the tests in src/nettest_bsd.c,
src/nettest_sdp.c, and src/nettest_sctp.c will be "migrated" to use
the "omni infrastructure" (aka two routines to measure them
all...). Apart from reduced socket code, the omni suite has
user-configurable output in either "human readable," CSV or
keyword=value format. By default, a VERY large quantity of data is
output when asking for csv format (test-specific -o option) or
keyword format (test-specific -k option). The omni suite is not
yet documented (there are some as-yet undiagnosed problems with
doc/netperf.texi in emacs texinfo mode and updating nodes and links
and such - any help there would be appreciated) but there is a
small text file in doc/ describing the names (most) of the
available output's. For the most up-to-date list consult
src/nettest_omni.c and the enum netperf_output_name. Or, you can
pass-in a "filename" of '?' to either of the -O, -o or -k options
and netperf will emit a list of the known available outputs.
*) Coming along for the ride are some new platform specific files to
determine the probable egress interface for each end of a test, as
well as driver information for that interface. There is also
reporting of "uname" like information for both local and remote
system, and eventually perhaps something about the vendor's model
name for the systems as well as the processor types. The end goal
is to make it easy to get most if not all what one would want in a
database of netperf results.
*) The UDP_RR test now understands the global -f option to change
output units. It also understands the -B option to tag
results. Courtesy of Alexander Duyck.
*) A fix has been added for hanging UDP_RR tests under
Windows. Courtesy of Alexander Duyck.
*) Use vfork() on those platforms without fork(), courtesy of Matt
Waddel
*) Track the bouncing interfaces that are linux processor affinity
*) Fixes for Solaris sendfilev usage.
*) A TCP_MSS test has been added which will report the MSS for a data
connection setup as if the test were a TCP_STREAM test. While the
remote (netserver) is tricked into thinking it is to accept a
TCP_STREAM test, no actual data will flow over the connection.
This means that if the MSS is one which might change over the life
of the connection, it will not be reflected in the test output.
Should this prove to be a problem a single send() can be arranged
along with the return of the shutdown();recv() handshake.
The idea is that this might be useful for netperf scripts wanting
to parameterize things based on the MSS - for example the
packet_byte_script.
*) The width of the confidence interval can be specified in fractions
of a percent for the confidence of a clean, close, comfortable
calculation. :)
*) Honor the global -B option in a TCP_SENDFILE test.
*) Correct the sense of Send/Recv in the banner of a TCP_MAERTS test.
These are the Release Notes for Revision 2.4.4 of netperf:
Things changed in this release:
*) The LOC_CPU and REM_CPU tests will report their respective beliefs
as to the number of CPUs present when the verbosity is set to more
than one. This can be used when trying to diagnose issues with CPU
utilization.
*) A kind soul who wishes to remain anonymous provided a patch to
enable use of sendfile() on OSX.
*) Fix a misplaced \n in a format string of send_tcp_maerts, courtesy
of Alexander Duyck.
*) There is an experimental global -r option which will allow one to
include CPU utilization measurements, but make the decision about
hitting confidence based on the result only. The test banner will
reflects this when -r is used.
*) It is no longer necessary to specify a file with the global -F
option when running a _SENDFILE test. Netperf will create a
temporary file and populate it with random data and use that. If
running aggregate tests it is strongly suggested one use a -F
option. Otherwise, the overhead spent creating and populating the
temporary file will be included in the CPU utilization calculation.
*) The configure script recognizes Solaris 11 and selects the correct
CPU utilization mechanism - or rather it selects the same mechanism
as is used in Solaris 10. Fix courtesy of Andrew Gallatin.
*) Convert a number of struct sockaddr_in's to struct
sockaddr_storage's and add requisite casts to deal with some abort
problems on Windows and perhaps other platforms as well. Kudos to
Alexander Duyck.
*) One can now pass a value of 'x' to the global -f option to specify
the units as transactions per second. This is the default for any
request/response test, which is determined by there being a "double
`r'" in the name - eg "RR," "rr," "Rr," or "rR." At present only
the TCP_RR test actually looks for this to be set.
*) One can request bits/bytes per second as the primary output of a
TCP_RR test by setting the global -f option to [kmgKMG] as with any
of the "STREAM" tests. This converts the primary throughput metric
to a bitrate (byterate) following the verbosity rules for a STREAM
test. Service demand remains usec/Transaction regardless of the
setting of the global -f option.
A verbosity level of 2 or more will cause the TCP_RR test to report
calculated average RTT latency, transaction rate, and inbound and
outbound transfer rates regardless of the primary units selected
with the global -f paramter. If the primary output is transactions
per second, the reported inbound and outbound transfer rates will
be 10^6 bits per second, otherwise, they honor the setting of the
global -f option.
All of this is EXPERIMENTAL and subject to change without prior
notice in future versions of netperf.
*) Replace "break" with "break 2" in acinclude.m4 for a socklen macro
*) The default for the requested socket buffer size is changed from 0
to -1 to enable passing a value of 0 under Windows, which tells that
stack one wishes to enable copy-avoidance.
*) Call fflush() on each interim result displayed in demo mode to make
things happier for folks redirecting same to a file. From Dan
Yost.
*) In theory each distinct netserver child will have a debug log with
its pid appended to the name, somewhat like what appears to happen
under Windows.
*) A new global, command-line option to netperf and netserver has been
added. The -V option will cause netperf/netserver to display its
version and exit.
*) Setting -I without setting -i will now implicitly set the iteration
minimum and maximums as if a -i 10,3 were set. Also, some further
sanity checking on the bounds for each is made.
*) Fixed a typo in the manual (found by Emir Halepovic) so the
description for the -s and -S options properly specifies they
affect the data connection.
These are the Release Notes for Revision 2.4.3 of netperf:
Things changed in this release:
*) The UDP_STREAM test includes --enable-demo support, courtesy of
patches from Scott Weitzenkamp.
*) The nettest_dns.* files have been removed from the release and the
repository. Those wishing to perform DNS server tests should
migrate to netperf4 which has better support for DNS test.
*) Fixes for compiling under Windows with Mingw/gcc courtesy of Gisle
Vanem.
*) A new global option - -N - has been added. When specified, this
option will tell netperf to not bother to try to establish a
control connection with a remote netserver. Instead, netperf will
only attempt to make a data connection to the remote system. By
default, this will be to the "discard" service for a "STREAM" or
"SENDFILE" test, the "echo" service for a "RR" test and the
"chargen" service for a "MAERTS" test. Any "remote" settings are
changed to reflect their being unused in the test, and a "no
control" tag is added to the test banner when -N is specified.
This still needs to be propagated to other test files - at least
for those for which it may make sense.
*) The tests in nettest_bsd.c have been altered to not actually take
timestamps and deltas in --enable-histogram unless the verbosity
level has been set to actually display a histogram. This reduces
the overhead measurably, even on systems with "fast" time calls,
which _may_ mean that a future release of netperf may have
histogram support enabled by default.
This still needs to be propagated to other test files. Patches
from the community would be most welcome :)
*) Eliminate a bogus fprintf from the signal catching routine which
was being executed when both intervals and demo mode were active at
the same time.
*) The nettest_ipv6.* files are no longer included in the source
tar/zip file. IPv6 functionality has been subsumed into the
nettest_bsd.* files for some time now.
*) Use a higher resolution "time" source for HISTOGRAM support under
Windows, courtesy of Spencer Frink. Prior to this it had no better
than 10ms granularity which could lead to some rather strange
looking results :)
*) A bug fix reporting recv_size rather than send_size in TCP_MAERTS
when CPU utilization was requested.
*) A bug fix for buffer filling from a file to properly advance the
buffer pointer when the file is smaller than the send buffer.
*) Enable certain UDP tests which previously used unconnected sockets
to use connected sockets. Courtesy of Shilpi Agarwal.
*) The OSX CPU utilization code actually gets put into the tarball in
a make dist now :)
*) The check to make sure that getaddrinfo returned ai_protocol and/or
ai_socktype's matching that which we requested is done for all socket
and/or protocol types and a warning is emitted if it returns any which
do not match.
*) The linux CPU affinity code has been made capable of binding to
CPU's >=32 on a 32-bit compilation and >=64 on a 64-bit
compilation.
*) More complete closing/redirecting of stdin/stdout/stderr/where in
netserver to make it easier to launch netserver at the far-end of a
remote shell. Courtesy of Hans Blom.
*) Sendfile changes for Solaris courtesy of Andrew Gallatin.
*) "spec" file support to generate RPMs courtesy of Martin Brown
These are the Release Notes for Revision 2.4.2 of netperf:
Things changed in this release:
*) Fixes for floating point format differences, courtesy of George
Davis.
*) Additions for CPU util support on MacOS X, courtesy of Anonymous.
*) Processor affinity is now supported on AIX 5.3 (perhaps earlier)
via the bindprocessor system call.
*) Fixes for test lockups with TCP_CRR and TCP_CC under Windows
courtesy of Dikon Reed.
*) Fixes to netcpu_looper.c to get it to actually compile :)
*) Have netcpu_looper use the bind_to_specific_processor() call
provided by netlib since that knows about more platforms than the
code in netcpu_looper did. The looper CPU binding will use a
mapping to handle cases where the CPU id's on the system may not be
a contiguous space starting from zero. At present, the code that
setups the mapping only knows about retrieving actual CPU ids under
HP-UX.
*) The netcpu_sysctl method becomes calibration-free, courtesy of
Andrew Gallatin
These are the Release Notes for Revision 2.4.1 of netperf:
Things changed in this release:
*) There is now a -B global command-line argument that will append its
parameter as a string to the end of result lines when test banners
have been suppressed. this is to make it easier to distinguish one
result from another when aggregate restults are being run in
parallel, without having to resort to having the individual results
shell redirected to a file. This has been done for some of the
tests in nettest_bsd.c, but not all of them, nor for the tests in
the other nettest_mumble.c files.
*) There is now an --enable-spin configure option that will enable
intervals if not already enabled and will have the sender sit and
spin in a tight loop until time for the next interval rather than
wait for an interval timer to expire. This means it should be
possible to have a much finer granularity on the interval, at the
expense of an EXTREME increase in CPU utilization. (To the extent
I'm considering disabling measurement of local CPU utilization when
that mode is enabled, and bursts have been requested - your
feedback on that topic would be most appreciated)
If only --enable-intervals is used with configure, the old set the
interval timer and wait method is still used.
If --enable-spin is configured, the test banner will include "spin
intervals" rather than the "intervals" from a plain
--enable-intervals. The sit and spin will either use
gettimeofday(), or gethrtime() if gethrtime() is available.
This has been implemented in the tests of nettest_bsd.c but none of
the others. Volunteers would be most welcome. I would entertain
the notion of making the implementation a series of inline
functions in netlib. This holds true for the demo mode - why will
become clear when you look at nettest_bsd.c. While things are
considerably cleaner than they were before, with reuse within
nettest_bsd.c, there is no resuse with the rest of the
nettest_mumble.c files.
*) the -w option for the interval time now takes three optional
suffixes. if the suffix is 'm' (eg 10m) it will assume the user has
specified time in units of milliseconds. if the suffix is 'u' it
will assume microseconds, and if 's' seconds. no suffix remains
milliseconds for backwards compatability with previous netperf
versions.
*) It should be possible to successfully compile with
--enable-intervals.
These are the Release Notes for Revision 2.4.1 of netperf:
Things changed in this release:
*) netcpu_pstatnew.c has been altered to workaround a bug in the
interrupt cycle accounting in HP-UX 11.23 that is not expected to
be resolved until a later release. basically, some interrupt time
is not counted, which means the sum of idle, user, kernel and
interrupt is less than the cycles per second multiplied by the
elapsed time. the workaround preserves the "no calibration
required" nature of the pstatnew CPU utilization mechanism. you
can see more in netcpu_pstatnew.c and/or in debug output.
*) in netlib.c recv_response has been renamed
recv_response_timed(addl_time) which is now used in
calibrate_remote_cpu in place of the "sleep(40);recv_response()"
sequence. This then allows the REM_CPU test to complete in less
than 40 seconds when the remote's CPU utilization mechanism does
not require calibration. The value of "addl_time" is added to the
tc_sec field of the select() timeout. A "new" recv_response has
been added that simply calls recv_response_timed(0) - this is to
minimize the number of changes needed elsewhere in the code.
*) hopefully, this release fixes problems people have been having with
the configure script failing when picking a type for socklen_t.
now, instead of generating an error, it emits a warning and simply
tries socklen_t
*) the configure script no longer looks for the size of an in_port_t
*) netlib.c now has code to perform processor binding for Tru64, but
the configure script may or may not detect it correctly. This means
that one may have to edit the config.h file by hand to get the
functionality.
*) it is known that netperf will compile under Windows XP and 2003
using the DDK it is possible that netperf 2.4.1 will compile on a
Windows system under VC++/Visual Studio. It might even work!-) See
the README.window file for additional details.
Things _NOT_ changed in this release:
*) The automagic determination of the number and type of parameters to
sched_setaffinity under Linux remains brittle at best.
These are the Release Notes for Revision 2.4.0 of netperf:
Things changed in this release:
*) Netperf has been converted to use a configure script. Yes boys and
girls, after 12 years of distributing netperf with just a makefile
I have finally bitten the bullet and cast my fate to autoconf,
automake, etc. To get the most basic netperf built all you should
need to do is:
cd to the netperf directory
./configure
make
and perhaps
make install
(Note, I've not done much with make install - I'm hemming and
hawing over what the default installation location should be)
Please keep in mind that this is the first time I've tried to use
autoconf et al. I am sure there are things that should be done
differently and would welcome any and all constructive criticisms.
I suspect there are several places where I've not fully
demonstrated being of the autoconf body - particulary as pertains
to include files being in "#if mumble #endif" blocks. Fixes would
be most welcome.
*) Speaking of becomming one with various GNU tools, work on a new
netperf manual has begun, with the source being a texinfo document
that is converted to "all" the other formats. This resides in doc/
.
*) The platform-specific parts of CPU utilization measurement have
been broken-out into separate .c files and selected at configure
time a la the pcap_mumble files of tcpdump. This makes
src/netlib.c _much_ easier to read and the addition of new CPU
utilization mechanisms much easier.
*) New HP-UX 11.23 and Solaris 10 CPU utilization measurement
mechanisms (called pstatnew and kstat10 respectively) need no
calibration step. Both have variations on microstate accounting.
HP-UX 11.23 still identifies the method in the headers as 'P' for
pstat. The kstat10 method is identified as 'M' for Microstate.
Scripts which make calibration runs with LOC_CPU and REM_CPU may
continue to do so, they will just run forty to eighty seconds
faster on platforms with the calibration-free CPU util mechanisms.
*) Automatic detection of CPU utilization mechanism for HP-UX, Linux,
AIX, *BSD and Solaris. If you do not like what the configure
script selects, you can use --enable-cpuutil=<foo> .
*) The "times" (aka 'T') CPU utilization mechanism has been removed.
It was never very accurate at all, only showing CPU time charged to
the process, and with interrupts and other network processing it is
rarely chaged to a or the correct process. It and other methods
may remain in the format_cpu_method() routine of src/netlib.c for
historical purposes only.
*) CAVEAT - the "kstat" mechanism is KNOWN TO BE BOGUS for Solaris.
It does not include time spent processing interrupts, and
networking benchmarks will generate at least a few of those...
This affects _ALL_ versions of Solaris with kstat.
So, do NOT trust any CPU util figures where netperf says the method
was 'K' for kstat - unless perhaps it reports 100% CPU util.
Solaris 10 takes a step in the right direction adding microstate
accounting similar to what netperf uses on HP-UX 11.23. HOWEVER,
Solaris 10's accounting for user/kernel/idle is done in _parallel_
with interrupt, which means they overlap. Doubleplusungood. Netperf
attempts to compensate for that with some handwaving
(src/netcpu_kstat10.c)
*) Initial support for SCTP has been added with the SCTP_STREAM and
SCTP_RR tests. These tests use the libsctp mechanisms for
increased portability. It has been explained that libsctp should
not impart all that much overhead and it does make things rather
simpler.
*) Netperf now uses getaddrinfo() to resolve hostnames and IP
addresses. A replacement getaddrinfo() is provided for those
platforms where the configure script cannot tell that getaddrinfo
is present.
There are cases where a host's getaddrinfo call may return results
that ignore the hints for protocol. Netperf catches these and
reports a warning so you can pester your OS source for fixes.
Solaris getaddrinfo() seems to return results with SCTP procotol
cleared.
Mac OS X getaddrinfo botches when the service/port is specified as
"0" so one must specify a port number on the netperf command line.
AIX 5.something getaddrinfo has a different but similar problem
with "0" as a port/service name as well.
Linux 2.6 and HP-UX 11i getaddrinfo seem to be fine - at least as
far as netperf goes :)
*) A "Demo Mode" has been added to the main BSD Sockets/TCP/UDP tests:
TCP_STREAM, TCP_MAERTS, TCP_SENDFILE, TCP_RR, TCP_CC, TCP_CRR and
UDP_RR. It has not been added to UDP_STREAM. This mode is enabled
with --enable-demo when configuring netperf, which activates a
global "-D" option. By default, -D will cause interim results
(throughput or transactions/s only, not CPU util) from the
netperf's perspective to be emitted no sooner than once per second.
An optional parameter can specify another interval in units
(floating point) of seconds:
-D 1.5
will make the reporting interval at least 1.5 seconds.
This mode makes no use of explicit interval timers since that can
be so, well fun on different platforms. Instead, an initial guess
of how many units of work must be done to consume the desired
reporting interval is made, and that guess is refined throughout
the entire test. If something happens to dramatically slow-down
the test, the reproting interval may become must larger for a few
intervals. When things speed-up it is detected very quickly. As
with the --enable-historgram support, if gethrtime() is available
on the platform, it will be used in lieu of gettimeofday(). In any
case, the number of calls to gettimeofday()/gethrtime() is much,
Much, MUCH smaller than for --enable-histogram so while there may
be a measurable effect on the results, it should be rather small.
*) The global -H option has been enhanced to take an optional address
family specification for the control connection:
-H <remote>,<family>
Unlike other comma-separated options, where specifying only one
thing will set both, here specifying only one thing will be
ass-u-me-d to be the <remote> and will leave <family> defaulted
(AF_UNSPEC). Family can be specified as "4" or "inet" for
AF_INET, "6" or "inet6" for AF_INET6.
*) A new global -L option has been added to specify the local name/IP
and/or address family for the control connection:
-L <local>,<family>
Unlike other comma-separated options, where specifying only one
thing will set both, here specifying only one thing will be
ass-u-me-d to be the <local> and will leave <family> defaulted
(AF_UNSPEC). Family can be specified as "4" or "inet" for
AF_INET, "6" or "inet6" for AF_INET6.
*) Test-specific -H and -L options are present for the TCP, UDP and
SCTP tests, which are now (intended to be) IP protocol version
agnostic.
*) Global -4 and -6 options will set the both the local and remote
address family to either AF_INET or AF_INET6 respectively.
*) Test-specific -4 and -6 options have been added for TCP, UDP and
SCTP tests.
*) Since the basic TCP UDP and SCTP tests are no longer IPv4-only, the
nettest_ipv6.[ch] files are only included in the source
distribution for historical interest.
*) The main test banners for the TCP, UDP and SCTP tests have been
enhanced to give both local and remote addressing information for
the data connection.
*) Compilation under Windows is likely FUBAR at this point. I _hope_
to start trying to do builds under the DDK soon, but am not sure
when I'll be able to start. Any and all assistance you can give
there would be most welcome.
*) Various and sundry fixes. TCP_RR should no longer go into an
infinite loop when you abort netperf. I'm sure there are others.
*) Unix domain socket tests are compiled-in with --enable-unix=yes at
configure time.
*) DLPI tests are compiled-in with --enable-dlpi=yes at configure
time.
*) XTI tests are compiled-in with --enable-xti=yes at configure time.
Things not changed in this release:
*) Seems like everything has changed :)
These are the Release Notes for Revision 2.3pl2 of netperf:
Things changed in this release
*) One can bind netperf or netserver to specific CPUs with the -T
option. This is a generalization of some HP-UX and netserver specific
work from 2.3pl1.
*) Extend the kludge to workaround the Linux setsockopt/getsockopt
bizzarreness to the socket buffer sizes for the remote side in
addition to the local side.
*) Fix the lack of initialization of times_up in recv_tcp_maerts()
that caused confidence intervals to fail miserably.
*) Other misc fixes - than you to all of you who sent them.
These are the Release Notes for revision 2.3pl1 of netperf:
Things changed in this release
*) The bind() call in create_data_socket() in the file nettest_bsd.c
is no longer conditional on the user's specifying an IP address or
port number to which the data socket should be bound. This fixes
the "connection refused" errors in the UDP tests.
*) Some experimental code to allow one to specify a CPU to which the
remote netserver should be bound. This is intended to allow one to
get greater certainty (as in confidence intervals) on SMP
systems. At present the functionality is HP-UX specific.
Submittals of changes for a more general approach are welcomed.
These are the Release Notes for revision 2.3 of netperf:
Things changed in this release
*) The user can now specify local and/or remote port numbers for the
data connection using the -P test-specific option. This is to
support those folks who want to run netperf through those evil,
end-to-end-breaking things known as firewalls... :) This changes
the format of some of the control messages, hence the bump in the
update number in the VUF. While it may be possible to mix 2.3 and
pre-2.3 netperf and netserver, it is not supported.
*) The user can now specify local and/or remote IP addresses for the
data connection using the -I test-specific option. This is to
support those folks who want to run netperf through those evil,
end-to-end-breaking things known as firewalls... :) This changes
the format of some of the control messages, hence the bump in the
update number in the VUF. While it may be possible to mix 2.3 and
pre-2.3 netperf and netserver, it is not supported.
*) Set DL_mumble message priorities in the DLPI tests
*) Fix error return check for getaddrinfo()
*) Those systems with gethrtime() can define -DHAVE_GETHRTIME to use
gethrtime() instead of gettimeofday() and reduce the measurement
overhead when enabling the -DHISTOGRAM functionality.
*) The default for -DHISTOGRAM compilation now adds a UNIT_USEC and
TEN_USEC row and renames TENTH_MSEC to HUNDRED_USEC. If you want
the old behaviour add -DOLD_HISTOGRAM to CFLAGS.
*) Add missing '!' in the recv_udp*_stream so we recognize the end of
a timed test correctly.
*) Replace "||" with "&&" to fix an infinite loop in
recv_tcp_conn_rr() most likely introduced in 2.2pl5.
*) Code has been added to kludge around the bug in Linux getsockopt()
where it almost always returns twice the value for which one
asks unlike virtually every other stack on the face of the
planet. This was doing some unpleasant things to tests in which
confidence intervals were requested.
Things not changed in this release
*) Lots :)
These are the Release Notes for revision 2.2pl5 of netperf:
Things changed in this release
*) Improved (perhaps even usable :) support for Windows, including
compilation and run on Win64.
*) Fixes for MacOS X and FreeBSD
Things not changed in this release
*) Specifying the port number(s) for the data connection
These are the Release Notes for Revision 2.2pl4 of netperf:
Things changed in this release
*) USE_SYSCTL available on suitable FreeBSD releases to measure CPU
utilization without having to resort to -DUSE_LOOPER.
*) Include Solaris 9 with the Linux sendfile path under -DHAVE_SENDFILE
This still outstanding in this release
*) Knowing why signals are not interrupting socket calls under
OpenVMS. A quick try to use threads for timing a la Win32 worked,
but also cut performance in half. Any and all assistance in this
area would be most welcome.
These are the Release Notes for revisoin 2.2pl3 of netperf:
Things changed in this release
*) I started practicing what I preach and will set SO_REUSEADDR before
netserver tries to bind to its well-known port.
*) Initial port to OpenVMS. This includes support for the OVMS
Auxilliary server (inetd replacement). See README.ovms for more
details on what is involved in compiling and running netperf under
OpenVMS.
*) Testname comparisons are now case insensitive. This is a side
effect of OpenVMS downshifting commandlines to lowercase. I made
the change and decided it was OK to keep it that way, even though
for OpenVMS one _has_ to set the right defines to disable that
downshifting or the command-line options will not work. For example
"-H" will become "-h" which isn't quite the same thing...
*) Misc fixes for nettest_ipv6.c.
*) Support for sendfile() under Linux
Thins I would like to have changed but did not know how or didn't have
time:
*) Allow netserver to run as a standalone daemon under OpenVMS
*) Allow netserver to run as a standalone daemon under Windows
*) Rediscover an inetd-like facility for Windows
*) Figure-out how to get low-overhead, accurate, per-CPU utilization
figures under OpenVMS
*) Get the UDP_RR and UDP_STREAM tests to work under OpenVMS, and get
the TCP_RR test to work based on time rather than transaction
count. There is some bug (possibly in OpenVMS?) where the SIGALRM
fires, but a socket call will not return an EINTR.
Things that changed prior to this release:
*) Addition of the TCP_MAERTS test - this is a TCP_STREAM test where
the data flows from the netserver to the netperf rather than from
the netperf to the netserver. This can be useful in those
situations where netperf (netserver) is installed on a remote
system, but the tester has no shell access and wishes to get
performance data for the path from netserver to netperf.
These are the Release Notes for the 2.2 revision of netperf:
Things changed in this release
*) Various and sundry bugs fixed (in theory) for platforms such as
FreeBSD and Linux. If I left-out your bug fix, it was purely
accidental - my mind has a very small cache, and sometimes I will
"lose" email in the shuffle.
*) Initial support for sendfile() on HP-UX. This test will use the
sendfile() call instead of send() to send data to the
remote. Netperf "lies" to netserver and calls it a TCP_STREAM test
since what netserver needs to do is exactly the same. A future
patch may change that and simply have netserver call the same
routine for both test types. Kudos to Charles Harris for the
initial prototype.
*) The Fore ATM API and HiPPI tests have been dropped from the
distribution.
Things I would have liked to have changed, but did not have time for:
*) Conversion of the source and makefile to use the GNU configure/autoconf
utility to make it easier for folks to build by not having to edit
makefiles... You will notice that I have started to switch from
"DO_MUMBLE" to "HAVE_MUMBLE"
as always - happy benchmarking,
rick jones <raj@cup.hp.com>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
These are the Release Notes for the 2.1pl3 revision of netperf:
*) An OBOB (Off By One Bug) in netlib.c that was causing a core dump
on Irix should be fixed.
*) Irix systems should now be able to determine the number of CPU's
present automagically (code from outside, not tested yet because I
have no MP Irix systems at my disposal)
*) An alpha version of a TCP_CC test has been added - this is a
TCP_CRR test with out the "RR."
*) The -Ae has been removed from the default makefile. If someone has
a nice way to automagically generate the correct makefile for
different platforms I would like to learn how.
happy benchmarking,
rick jones <raj@cup.hp.com>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
These are the Release Notes for the 2.1 revision of netperf:
Things Changed in this release:
*) The XTI (Version 2 of the spec) tests are now documented in the
manual.
*) The TCP_CRR (Connect Request/Response) test is now documented in
the manual, including a description of how it mimics the behaviour
of http (the protocol underlying the WWW).
*) Support for for Windows NT 3.51 OS in the BSD Sockets tests (ok, so
they are really Winsock in that case :). Other test suites may be
ported as required/desired/appropriate.
*) Tests for TCP and UDP, using the IPv6 extensions to BSD sockets are
included in this release. They are included by adding -DUSE_IPv6 to
the makefile and recompiling.
*) Support for a "long long" datatype should only be required for
-DUSE_PSTAT compilation which is an HP-UX only thing. The
*unbundled* HP compilers from at least "HP92453-01 A.09.61 HP C
Compiler" and later should have the required support. The bundled
compiler may not. GCC should work - check the archives listed in
the comp.sys.hp.hpux FAQ for copies. The FAQ is archived on
rtfm.mit.edu under the path pub/usenet/comp.sys.hp.hpux.
*) A "proper" fix for double data type alignment has been included.
*) A new script is included with this release which can be used to
measure aggregate TCP_RR performance (multiple, concurrent
instances of the TCP_RR test). A related use of this script would
be measuring MP scaling. A single-byte TCP_RR test is good for this
purpose for two reasons:
1) it excercises the control/protocol paths heavily without
using much in the way of data copies which may be easier to
scale.
2) most systems can easily saturate cards with bandwidth, but
not so easily with request/response
Of course, feedback on this is most welcome.
*) When measuring CPU utilization, the units for service demand have
been changed from milliseconds (designated ms) of CPU per unit (KB
or Transaction) to microseconds (desginated us).
*) For accurate reporting of service demand, netperf needs to know the
number of CPU's present on a system. On some systems (HP-UX), this
is automatic. For others (All), it is necessary to add a global "-n
<numcpu>" option to both netperf and netserver.
!! IF THIS IS LEFT-OUT CPU UTILIZATION AND SERVICE DEMAND FOR !!
!! MULTI-PROCESSOR SYSTEMS WILL BE WRONG. !!
If you know of ways to programatically determine the number of
active CPUs on a system, please let the author Rick Jones
<raj@cup.hp.com> know.
*) other things I've probably forgotten :)
Things Not Changed in this release:
*) The ancillary test suites are essentially unchanged - DLPI,
HiPPI/LLA, Unix Domain, and Fore ATM API. Unless there is much
interest expressed in these tests, 2.1 may be the last release in
which they are included. The order of retirement would likely be
Unix Domain, HiPPI/LLA, Fore ATM API, and then DLPI.
Miscelaneous Comments:
*) The -DUSE_LOOPER CPU utilization _seems_ to be nice and low-impact
on HP-UX, Digital Unix, and IRIX. It does not yet seem to be
low-impact on Solaris (I need an example of priocntl usage), AIX
(setpri only works if you are root), and NT (not sure of the
reason). Help with those problems would be most appreciated.