Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-bmwg-benchmarking-stateful
draft-ietf-bmwg-benchmarking-stateful
Benchmarking Methodology Working Group G. Lencse
Internet-Draft Szechenyi Istvan University
Intended status: Informational K. Shima
Expires: 18 August 2023 SoftBank Corp.
14 February 2023
Benchmarking Methodology for Stateful NATxy Gateways using RFC 4814
Pseudorandom Port Numbers
draft-ietf-bmwg-benchmarking-stateful-02
Abstract
RFC 2544 has defined a benchmarking methodology for network
interconnect devices. RFC 5180 addressed IPv6 specificities and it
also provided a technology update, but excluded IPv6 transition
technologies. RFC 8219 addressed IPv6 transition technologies,
including stateful NAT64. However, none of them discussed how to
apply RFC 4814 pseudorandom port numbers to any stateful NATxy
(NAT44, NAT64, NAT66) technologies. We discuss why using
pseudorandom port numbers with stateful NATxy gateways is a difficult
problem. We recommend a solution limiting the port number ranges and
using two phases: the preliminary test phase and the real test phase.
We show how the classic performance measurement procedures (e.g.
throughput, frame loss rate, latency, etc.) can be carried out. We
also define new performance metrics and measurement procedures for
maximum connection establishment rate, connection tear down rate and
connection tracking table capacity measurements.
Status of This Memo
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provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 18 August 2023.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components
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provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Pseudorandom Port Numbers and Stateful Translation . . . . . 3
3. Test Setup and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. When Testing with a Single IP Address Pair . . . . . . . 4
3.2. When Testing with Multiple IP Addresses . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Recommended Benchmarking Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1. Restricted Number of Network Flows . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2. Preliminary Test Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.3. Consideration of the Cases of Stateful Operation . . . . 10
4.4. Control of the Connection Tracking Table Entries . . . . 11
4.5. Measurement of the Maximum Connection Establishment
Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.6. Validation of Connection Establishment . . . . . . . . . 13
4.7. Real Test Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.8. Measurement of the Connection Tear Down Rate . . . . . . 14
4.9. Measurement of the Connection Tracking Table Capacity . . 15
4.10. Writing and Reading Order of the State Table . . . . . . 20
5. Scalability Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.1. Scalability Against the Number of Network Flows . . . . . 20
5.2. Scalability Against the Number of CPU Cores . . . . . . . 21
6. Reporting Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
7. Implementation and Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8. Limitations of using UDP as Transport Layer Protocol . . . . 23
9. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Appendix A. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
A.1. 00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
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A.2. 01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
A.3. 02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
A.4. 03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
A.5. 04 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
A.6. 00 - WG item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
A.7. 01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
A.8. 02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1. Introduction
[RFC2544] has defined a comprehensive benchmarking methodology for
network interconnect devices, which is still in use. It was mainly
IP version independent, but it used IPv4 in its examples. [RFC5180]
addressed IPv6 specificities and also added technology updates, but
declared IPv6 transition technologies out of its scope. [RFC8219]
addressed the IPv6 transition technologies, including stateful NAT64.
It has reused several benchmarking procedures from [RFC2544] (e.g.
throughput, frame loss rate), it has redefined the latency
measurement, and added further ones, e.g. the PDV (packet delay
variation) measurement.
However, none of them discussed, how to apply [RFC4814] pseudorandom
port numbers, when benchmarking stateful NATxy (NAT44, NAT64, NAT66)
gateways. We are not aware of any other RFCs that address this
question.
First, we discuss why using pseudorandom port numbers with stateful
NATxy gateways is a hard problem.
Then we recommend a solution.
1.1. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
2. Pseudorandom Port Numbers and Stateful Translation
In its appendix, [RFC2544] has defined a frame format for test frames
including specific source and destination port numbers. [RFC4814]
recommends to use pseudorandom and uniformly distributed values for
both source and destination port numbers. However, stateful NATxy
(NAT44, NAT64, NAT66) solutions use the port numbers to identify
connections. The usage of pseudorandom port numbers causes different
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problems depending on the direction.
* As for the client to server direction, pseudorandom source and
destination port numbers could be used, however, this approach
would be a denial of service attack against the stateful NATxy
gateway, because it would exhaust its connection tracking table
capacity. To that end, let us see some calculations using the
recommendations of RFC 4814:
- The recommended source port range is: 1024-65535, thus its size
is: 64512.
- The recommended destination port range is: 1-49151, thus its
size is: 49151.
- The number of source and destination port number combinations
is: 3,170,829,312.
We note that the usage of different source and destination IP
addresses further increases the number of connection tracking
table entries.
* As for the server to client direction, the stateful DUT (Device
Under Test) would drop any packets that do not belong to an
existing connection, therefore, the direct usage of pseudorandom
port numbers from the above-mentioned ranges is not feasible.
3. Test Setup and Terminology
Section 12 of [RFC2544] requires testing first using a single
protocol source and destination address pair an then also using
multiple protocol addresses. We follow the same approach: first, we
use a single source and destination IP address pair, and then we
explain how to use multiple IP addresses.
3.1. When Testing with a Single IP Address Pair
Our methodology works with any IP versions to benchmark stateful
NATxy gateways, where x and y are in {4, 6}. To facilitate an easy
understanding, we use two typical examples: stateful NAT44 and
stateful NAT64.
The Test Setup for the well-known stateful NAT44 (also called NAPT:
Network Address and Port Translation) solution is shown in Figure 1.
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Note: We are fully aware of [RFC6890] special purpose IP address
ranges. The [RFC1918] private IP addresses are used to facilitate an
easy understanding of the example. And we consider the usage of the
IP addresses reserved for benchmarking absolutely legitimate.
+--------------------------------------+
10.0.0.2 |Initiator Responder| 198.19.0.2
+-------------| Tester |<------------+
| private IPv4| [state table]| public IPv4 |
| +--------------------------------------+ |
| |
| +--------------------------------------+ |
| 10.0.0.1 | DUT: | 198.19.0.1 |
+------------>| Stateful NAT44 gateway |-------------+
private IPv4| [connection tracking table] | public IPv4
+--------------------------------------+
Figure 1: Test Setup for benchmarking stateful NAT44 gateways
The Test Setup for the also widely used stateful NAT64 [RFC6146]
solution is shown in Figure 2.
+--------------------------------------+
2001:2::2 |Initiator Responder| 198.19.0.2
+-------------| Tester |<------------+
| IPv6 address| [state table]| IPv4 address|
| +--------------------------------------+ |
| |
| +--------------------------------------+ |
| 2001:2::1 | DUT: | 198.19.0.1 |
+------------>| Stateful NAT64 gateway |-------------+
IPv6 address| [connection tracking table] | IPv4 address
+--------------------------------------+
Figure 2: Test setup for benchmarking stateful NAT64 gateways
As for transport layer protocol, [RFC2544] recommended testing with
UDP, and it was kept also in [RFC8219]. For the general
recommendation, we also keep UDP, thus the port numbers in the
following text are to be understood as UDP port numbers. We discuss
the limitation of this approach in Section 8.
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We define the most important elements of our proposed benchmarking
system as follows.
* Connection tracking table: The stateful NATxy gateway uses a
connection tracking table to be able to perform the stateful
translation in the server to client direction. Its size, policy
and content are unknown for the Tester.
* Four tuple: The four numbers that identify a connection are source
IP address, source port number, destination IP address,
destination port number.
* State table: The Responder of the Tester extracts the four tuple
from each received test frame and stores it in its state table.
Recommendation is given for writing and reading order of the state
table in Section 4.10.
* Initiator: The port of the Tester that may initiate a connection
through the stateful DUT in the client to server direction.
Theoretically, it can use any source and destination port numbers
from the ranges recommended by [RFC4814]: if the used four tuple
does not belong to an existing connection, the DUT will register a
new connection into its connection tracking table.
* Responder: The port of the Tester that may not initiate a
connection through the stateful DUT in the server to client
direction. It may send only frames that belong to an existing
connection. To that end, it uses four tuples that have been
previously extracted from the received test frames and stored in
its state table.
* Preliminary test phase: Test frames are sent only by the Initiator
to the Responder through the DUT to fill both the connection
tracking table of the DUT and the state table of the Responder.
This is a newly introduced operation phase for stateful NATxy
benchmarking. The necessity of this phase is explained in
Section 4.2.
* Real test phase: The measurement procedures defined by [RFC8219]
(e.g. throughput, latency, etc.) are performed in this phase after
the completion of the preliminary test phase. Test frames are
sent as required (e.g. bidirectional test or unidirectional test
in any of the two directions).
3.2. When Testing with Multiple IP Addresses
We make considerations regarding the necessary and the available IP
addresses.
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In Figure 1, we used the single 198.19.0.1 IPv4 address on the WAN
side port of the stateful NAT44 gateway. However, in practice, not a
single IP address, but an IP address range is assigned to the WAN
side port of the stateful NAT44 gateways. Its required size depends
on the number of client nodes and on the type of the stateful NAT44
algorithm. (The traditional algorithm always replaces the source
port number, when a new connection is established. Thus it requires
a larger range than the extended algorithm, which replaces the source
port number only when it is necessary. Please refer to Table 1 and
Table 2 of [LEN2015].)
When router testing is done, section 12 of [RFC2544] requires testing
first using a single source and destination IP address pair, and then
using destination IP addresses from 256 different networks. The
16-23 bits of the 198.18.0.0/24 and 198.18.0.0/24 addresses can be
used to express the 256 networks. As we do not do router testing, we
do not need to use multiple destination networks, therefore, these
bits are available for expressing multiple IP addresses that belong
to the same "/16" network.
10.[0-255].[0-255].2/8 198.19.[128-255].1/16
\ +--------------------------------------+ /
\ |Initiator Responder| /
+-------------| Tester |<------------+
| private IPv4| [state table]| public IPv4 |
| +--------------------------------------+ |
| |
| +--------------------------------------+ |
| 10.0.0.1/8 | DUT: | public IPv4 |
+------------>| Stateful NAT44 gateway |-------------+
private IPv4| [connection tracking table] | \
+--------------------------------------+ \
198.19.[0-127].1/16
Figure 3: Test Setup for benchmarking stateful NAT44 gateways
using multiple IPv4 addresses
A possible solution for assigning multiple IPv4 addresses is shown in
Figure 3. On the left side, the private IP address range is
abundantly large. (We used the 8-23 bit to generate 64k potential
different source addresses, but the 24-30 bits are also available if
needed.) On the right side, the address range reserved for
benchmarking should be handled with caution. (We cut it into two
equal parts. Asymmetric division is also possible. And also the
24-30 bits are available, if needed.)
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We note that these are the potential address ranges. We discuss the
actual address ranges to be used in Section 4.1.
In the case of stateful NAT64, a single "/64" IPv6 prefix contains a
high number of bits to express different IPv6 addresses. Figure 4
shows an example, where we used bits 96-111 for that purpose.
2001:2::[0-ff][0-ff]:0002/64 198.19.[128-255].1/16
\ +--------------------------------------+ /
IPv6 \ |Initiator Responder| /
+-------------| Tester |<------------+
| addresses | [state table]| public IPv4 |
| +--------------------------------------+ |
| |
| +--------------------------------------+ |
| 2001:2::1/64| DUT: | public IPv4 |
+------------>| Stateful NAT64 gateway |-------------+
IPv6 address | [connection tracking table] | \
+--------------------------------------+ \
198.19.[0-127].1/16
Figure 4: Test Setup for benchmarking stateful NAT64 gateways
using multiple IPv6 and IPv4 addresses
4. Recommended Benchmarking Method
4.1. Restricted Number of Network Flows
When a single IP address pair is used for testing then the number of
network flows is determined by the number of source port number
destination port number combinations.
The Initiator SHOULD use restricted ranges for source and destination
port numbers to avoid the denial of service attack like event against
the connection tracking table of the DUT described in Section 2. If
it is possible, the size of the source port number range SHOULD be
larger (e.g. in the order of a few times ten thousand), whereas the
size of the destination port number range SHOULD be smaller (may vary
from a few to several hundreds or thousands as needed). The
rationale is that source and destination port numbers that can be
observed in the Internet traffic are not symmetrical. Whereas source
port numbers may be random, there are a few very popular destination
port numbers (e.g. 443, 80, etc., see [IIR2020]) and others hardly
occur. And we have found that their role is also asymmetric in the
Linux kernel routing hash function [LEN2020].
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However, in some special cases the size of the source port range is
limited. E.g. when benchmarking the CE and BR of a MAP-T [RFC7599]
system together (as a compound system performing stateful NAT44),
then the source port range is limited to the number of source port
numbers assigned to each subscriber. (It could be as low as 2048
ports.)
When multiple IP addresses are used, then the port number ranges
should be even more restricted, as the number of potential network
flows is the product of the size of the source IP address range, the
size of the source port number range, the size of the destination IP
address range, and the size of the destination port number range.
And our method requires the enumeration of all their possible
combinations in the preliminary test phase as described in
Section 4.4.
The number of network flows can be used as a parameter. The
performance of the stateful NATxy gateway MAY be examined as a
function of this parameter as described in Section 5.1.
4.2. Preliminary Test Phase
The preliminary test phase serves two purposes:
1. The connection tracking table of the DUT is filled. It is
important, because its maximum connection establishment rate may
be lower than its maximum frame forwarding rate (that is
throughput).
2. The state table of the Responder is filled with valid four
tuples. It is a precondition for the Responder to be able to
transmit frames that belong to connections exist in the
connection tracking table of the DUT.
Whereas the above two things are always necessary before the real
test phase, the preliminary test phase can be used without the real
test phase. It is done so, when the maximum connection establishment
rate is measured (as described in Section 4.5).
A preliminary test phase MUST be performed before all tests performed
in the real test phase. The following things happen in the
preliminary test phase phase:
1. The Initiator sends test frames to the Responder through the DUT
at a specific frame rate.
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2. The DUT performs the stateful translation of the test frames and
it also stores the new connections in its connection tracking
table.
3. The Responder receives the translated test frames and updates its
state table with the received four tuples. The responder
transmits no test frames during the preliminary test phase.
When the preliminary test phase is performed in preparation to the
real test phase, the applied frame rate SHOULD be safely lower than
the maximum connection establishment rate. (It implies that maximum
connection establishment rate measurement MUST be performed first.)
Please refer to Section 4.4 for further conditions regarding timeout
and the enumeration of all possible port number combinations.
4.3. Consideration of the Cases of Stateful Operation
We consider the most important Events that may happen during the
operation of a stateful NATxy gateway, and the Actions of the gateway
as follows.
1. EVENT: A packet not belonging to an existing connection arrives
in the client to server direction. ACTION: A new connection is
registered into the connection tracking table and the packet is
translated and forwarded.
2. EVENT: A packet not belonging to an existing connection arrives
in the server to client direction. ACTION: The packet is
discarded.
3. EVENT: A packet belonging to an existing connection arrives (in
any dicection). ACTION: The packet is translated and forwarded
and the timeout counter of the corresponding connection tracking
table entry is reset.
4. EVENT: A connection tracking table entry times out. ACTION: The
entry is deleted from the connection tracking table.
Due to "black box" testing, the Tester is not able to directly
examine (or delete) the entries of the connection tracking table.
But the entires can be and MUST be controlled by setting an
appropriate timeout value and carefully selecting the port numbers of
the packets (as described in Section 4.4) to be able to produce
meaningful and repeatable measurement results.
We aim to support the measurement of the following performance
characteristics of a stateful NATxy gateway:
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1. maximum connection establishment rate
2. all "classic" performance metrics like throughput, frame loss
rate, latency, etc.
3. connection tear down rate
4. connection tracking table capacity
4.4. Control of the Connection Tracking Table Entries
It is necessary to control the connection tracking table entries of
the DUT in order to achieve clear conditions for the measurements.
We can simply achieve the following two extreme situations:
1. All frames create a new entry in the connection tracking table of
the DUT and no old entries are deleted during the test. This is
required for measuring the maximum connection establishment rate.
2. No new entries are created in the connection tracking table of
the DUT and no old ones are deleted during the test. This is
ideal for the real test phase measurements, like throughput,
latency, etc.
From this point we use the following two assumptions:
1. The connection tracking table of the stateful NATxy is large
enough to store all connections defined by the different source
port number destination port number combinations.
2. Each experiment is started with an empty connection tracking
table. (It can be ensured by deleting its content before the
experiment.)
The first extreme situation can be achieved by
* using different four tuples for every single test frame in the
preliminary test phase and
* setting the UDP timeout of the NATxy gateway to a value higher
than the length of the preliminary test phase.
The second extreme situation can be achieved by
* enumerating all possible four tuples in the preliminary test phase
and
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* setting the UDP timeout of the NATxy gateway to a value higher
than the length of the preliminary test phase plus the gap between
the two phases plus the length of the real test phase.
[RFC4814] REQUIRES pseudorandom port numbers, which we believe is a
good approximation of the distribution of the source port numbers a
NATxy gateway on the Internet may face with.
We note that although the enumeration of all possible four tuples is
not a requirement for the first extreme situation and the usage of
different four tuples in the preliminary test phase is not a
requirement for the second extreme situation, pseudorandom
enumeration of all possible four tuples in the preliminary test phase
is a good solution in both cases. It may be computing efficiently
generated by preparing a random permutation of the previously
enumerated all possible four tuples using Dustenfeld's random shuffle
algorithm [DUST1964].
The enumeration of the four tuples in increasing or decreasing order
(or in any other specific order) MAY be used as an additional
measurement.
4.5. Measurement of the Maximum Connection Establishment Rate
The maximum connection establishment rate is an important
characteristic of the stateful NATxy gateway and its determination is
necessary for the safe execution of the preliminary test phase
(without frame loss) before the real test phase.
The measurement procedure of the maximum connection establishment
rate is very similar to the throughput measurement procedure defined
in [RFC2544].
Procedure: The Initiator sends a specific number of test frames using
all different four tuples at a specific rate through the DUT. The
Responder counts the frames that are successfully translated by the
DUT. If the count of offered frames is equal to the count of
received frames, the rate of the offered stream is raised and the
test is rerun. If fewer frames are received than were transmitted,
the rate of the offered stream is reduced and the test is rerun.
The maximum connection establishment rate is the fastest rate at
which the count of test frames successfully translated by the DUT is
equal to the number of test frames sent to it by the Initiator.
Note: In practice, we RECOMMEND the usage of binary search.
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4.6. Validation of Connection Establishment
Due to "black box" testing, the entries of the connection tracking
table of the DUT may not be directly examined, but the presence of
the connections can be checked easily by sending frames from the
Responder to the Initiator in the real test phase using all four
tuples stored in the state table of the Tester (at a low enough frame
rate). The arrival of all test frames indicates that the connections
are really present.
Procedure: When all the desired N number of test frames were sent by
the Initiator to the Receiver at frame rate R in the preliminary test
phase for the maximum connection establishment rate measurement, and
the Receiver has successfully received all the N frames, the
establishment of the connections is checked in the real test phase as
follows:
* The Responder sends test frames to the Initiator at frame rate:
r=R*alpha, for the duration of N/r using a different four tuple
from its state table for each test frame.
* The Initiator counts the received frames, and if all N frames are
arrived then the R frame rate of the maximum connection
establishment rate measurement (performed in the preliminary test
phase) is raised for the next iteration, otherwise lowered (as
well as in the case if test frames were missing in the preliminary
test phase).
Notes:
* The alpha is a kind of "safety factor", its aim is to make sure
that the frame rate used for the validation is not too high, and
test may fail only in the case if at least one connection is not
present in the connection tracking table of the DUT. (So alpha
should be typically less than 1, e.g. 0.8 or 0.5.)
* The duration of N/r and the frame rate of r means that N frames
are sent for validation.
* The order of four tuple selection is arbitrary provided that all
four tuples MUST be used.
* Please refer to Section 4.9 for a short analysis of the operation
of the measurement and what problems may occur.
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4.7. Real Test Phase
As for the traffic direction, there are three possible cases during
the real test phase:
* bidirectional traffic: The Initiator sends test frames to the
Responder and the Responder sends test frames to the Initiator.
* unidirectional traffic from the Initiator to the Responder: The
Initiator sends test frames to the Responder but the Responder
does not send test frames to the Initiator.
* unidirectional traffic from the Responder to the Initiator: The
Responder sends test frames to the Initiator but the Initiator
does not send test frames to the Responder.
If the Initiator sends test frames, then it uses pseudorandom source
port numbers and destination port numbers from the restricted port
number ranges. (If it uses multiple source and/or destination IP
addresses, then their ranges are also limited.) The responder
receives the test frames, updates its state table and processes the
test frames as required by the given measurement procedure (e.g. only
counts them for throughput test, handles timestamps for latency or
PDV tests, etc.).
If the Responder sends test frames, then it uses the four tuples from
its state table. The reading order of the state table may follow
different policies (discussed in Section 4.10). The Initiator
receives the test frames, and processes them as required by the given
measurement procedure.
As for the actual measurement procedures, we RECOMMEND to use the
updated ones from Section 7 of [RFC8219].
4.8. Measurement of the Connection Tear Down Rate
Connection tear down can cause significant load for the NATxy
gateway. The connection tear down performance can be measured as
follows:
1. Load a certain number of connections (N) into the connection
tracking table of the DUT (in the same way as done to measure the
maximum connection establishment rate).
2. Record TimestampA.
3. Delete the content of the connection tracking table of the DUT.
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4. Record TimestampB.
The connection tear down rate can be computed as:
connection tear down rate = N / ( TimestampB - TimestampA)
The connection tear down rate SHOULD be measured for various values
of N.
We assume that the content of the connection tracking table may be
deleted by an out-of-band control mechanism specific to the given
NATxy gateway implementation. (E.g. by removing the appropriate
kernel module under Linux.)
We are aware that the performance of removing the entire content of
the connection tracking table at one time may be different from
removing all the entries one by one.
4.9. Measurement of the Connection Tracking Table Capacity
The connection tracking table capacity is an important metric of
stateful NATxy gateways. Its measurement is not easy, because an
elementary step of a validated maximum connection establishment rate
measurement (defined in Section 4.6) may have only a few distinct
observable outcomes, but some of them they may have different root
causes:
1. During the preliminary test phase, the number of test frames
received by the Responder is less than the number of test frames
sent by the Initiator. It may have different root causes,
including:
1. The R frame sending rate was higher than the maximum
connection establishment rate. (Note that now the maximum
connection establishment rate is considered unknown, because
we can not measure the maximum connection establishment
without our assumption 1 in Section 4.4!) This root cause
may be eliminated by lowering the R rate and re-executing the
test. (This step may be performed multiple times, while
R>0.)
2. The capacity of the connection tracking table of the DUT has
been exhausted. (And either the DUT does not want to delete
connections or the deletion of the connections makes it
slower. This case is not investigated further in the
preliminary test phase.)
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2. During the preliminary test phase, the number of test frames
received by the Responder equals the number of test frames sent
by the Initiator. In this case the connections are validated in
the real test phase. The validation may have two kinds of
observable results:
1. The number of validation frames received by the Initiator
equals the number of validation frames sent by the Responder.
(It proves that the capacity of the connection tracking table
of the DUT is enough and both R and r were chosen properly.)
2. The number of validation frames received by the Initiator is
less than the number of validation frames sent by the
Responder. This phenomenon may have various root causes:
1. The capacity of the connection tracking table of the DUT
has been exhausted. (It does not matter, whether some
existing connections are discarded and new ones are
stored, or the new connections are discarded. Some
connections are lost anyway, and it makes validation
fail.)
2. The R frame sending rate used by the Initiator was too
high in the preliminary test phase and thus some
connections were not established, even though all test
frames arrived to the Responder. This root cause may be
eliminated by lowering the R rate and re-executing the
test. (This step may be performed multiple times, while
R>0.)
3. The r frame sending rate used by the Responder was too
high in the real test phase and thus some test frames did
not arrive to the Initiator, even though all connections
were present in the connection tracking table of the DUT.
This root cause may be eliminated by lowering the r rate
and re-executing the test. (This step may be performed
multiple times, while r>0.)
And here is the problem: as the above three root causes are
indistinguishable, it is not easy to decide, whether R or r
should be decreased.
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We have some experience with benchmarking stateful NATxy gateways.
When we tested iptables with very high number of connections, the
256GB RAM of the DUT was exhausted and it stopped responding. Such a
situation may make the connection tracking table capacity
measurements rather inconvenient. We include this possibility in our
recommended measurement procedure, but we do not address the
detection and elimination of such a situation. (E.g. how the
algorithm can reset the DUT.)
For the connection tracking table size measurement, fist we need a
safe number: C0. It is a precondition, that C0 number of connections
can surely be stored in the connection tracking table of the DUT.
Using C0, one can determine the maximum connection establishment rate
using C0 number of connections. It is done with a binary search
using validation. The result is: R0. The values C0 and R0 will
serve as "safe" starting values for the following two searches.
First, we perform an exponential search to find the order of
magnitude of the connection tracking table capacity. The search
stops if the DUT collapses OR the maximum connection establishment
rate severely drops (e.g. to its one tenth) due to doubling the
number of connections.
Then, the result of the exponential search gives the order of
magnitude of the size of the connection tracking table. Before
disclosing the possible algorithms to determine the exact size of the
connection tracking table, we consider a three possible replacement
policies of the NATxy gateway:
1. The gateway does not delete any live connections until their
timeout expires.
2. The gateway replaces the live connections according to LRU (least
recently used) policy.
3. The gateway does a garbage collection, when its connection
tracking table is full and a frame with a new four tuple arrives.
During the garbage collection, it deletes the K least recently
used connections, where K is greater than 1.
Now, we examine, what happens and how many validation frames arrive
in the there cases. Let the size of the connection tracking table be
S, and the number of preliminary frames be N, where S is less than N.
1. The connections defined by the first S test frames are registered
into the connection tracking table of the DUT, and the last N-S
connections are lost. (It is a another question if the last N-S
test frames are translated and forwarded in the preliminary test
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phase or simply dropped.) During validation, the validation
frames with four tuples corresponding to the first S test frames
will arrive to the Initiator, and the other N-S validation frames
will be lost.
2. All connections are registered into the connection tracking table
of the DUT, but the first N-S connections are replaced (and thus
lost). During validation, the validation frames with four tuples
corresponding to the last S test frames will arrive to the
Initiator, and the other N-S validation frames will be lost.
3. Depending on the values of K, S and N, maybe less than S
connections will survive. In the worst case, only S-K+1
validation frames arrive, even though, the size of the connection
tracking table is S.
If we know that the stateful NATxy gateway uses the first or second
replacement policy, and we also know that both R and r rates are low
enough, then the final step of determining the size of the connection
tracking table is simple. If Responder sent N validation frames and
the Initator received N' of them, then the size of the connection
tracking table is N'.
In the general case, we perform a binary search to find the exact
value of the connection tracking table capacity within E error. The
search chooses the lower half of the interval if the DUT collapses OR
the maximum connection establishment rate severely drops (e.g. to its
half) otherwise it chooses the higher half. The search stops if the
size of the interval is less than the E error.
The algorithms for the general case are defined using C like
pseudocode in Figure 5. In practice, this algorithm may be made more
efficient in a way that the binary search for the maximum connection
establishment rate stops, if an elementary test fails at a rate under
RS*beta or RS*gamma during the external search or during the final
binary search for the capacity of the connection tracking table,
respectively. (This saves a lot a execution time by eliminating the
long lasting tests at low rates.)
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// The binary_search_for_maximum_connection_establishment_rate(c,r)
// function performs a binary search for the maximum connection
// establishment rate in the [0, r] interval using c number of
// connections.
// This is an exponential search for finding the order of magnitude
// of the connection tracking table capacity
// Variables:
// C0 and R0 are beginning safe values for connection tracking table
size and connection establishment rate, respectively
// CS and RS are their currently used safe values
// CT and RT are their values for current examination
// beta is a factor expressing unacceptable drop of R (e.g. beta=0.1)
R0=binary_search_for_maximum_connection_establishment_rate(C0,maxrate);
for ( CS=C0, RS=R0; 1; CS=CT, RS=RT )
{
CT=2*CS;
RT=binary_search_for_maximum_connection_establishment_rate(CT,RS);
if ( DUT_collapsed || RT < RS*beta )
break;
}
// here the size of the connection tracking table is between CS and CT
// This the final binary search for finding the connection tracking
// table capacity within E error
// Variables:
// CS and RS are the safe values for connection tracking table size
// and connection establishment rate, respectively
// C and R are the values for current examination
// gamma is a factor expressing unacceptable drop of R
// (e.g. gamma=0.5)
for ( D=CT-CS; D>E; D=CT-CS )
{
C=(CS+CT)/2;
R=binary_search_for_maximum_connection_establishment_rate(C,RS);
if ( DUT_collapsed || R < RS*gamma)
CT=C; // take the lower half of the interval
else
CS=C,RS=R; // take the upper half of the interval
}
// here the size of the connection tracking table is CS within E error
Figure 5: Measurement of the Connection Tracking Table Capacity
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4.10. Writing and Reading Order of the State Table
As for writing policy of the state table of the Responder, we
RECOMMEND round robin, because it ensures that its entries are
automatically kept fresh and consistent with that of the connection
tracking table of the DUT.
The Responder can read its state table in various orders, for
example:
* pseudorandom
* round robin
We RECOMMEND pseudorandom to follow the spirit of [RFC4814]. Round
robin may be used as a computationally cheaper alternative.
5. Scalability Measurements
As for scalability measurements, we do not define any new type of
performance metrics, but we recommend to perform measurement series
through which the value of one or more parameter(s) is/are changed to
discover how the various values of the given parameter(s) influence
the performance of the DUT.
5.1. Scalability Against the Number of Network Flows
The aim of the scalability measurements is to quantify how the
performance of the stateful NATxy gateways degrades with the increase
of the number of network flows.
As for the actual values for the number of network flows to be used
during the measurement series, we RECOMMEND to use some
representative values from the range of the potential number of
network flows the DUT may be faced with during its intended usage.
It is important, how the given number of networks flows are
generated. The sizes of the ranges of the source and destination IP
addresses and port numbers are essential parameters to be reported
together with the results. Please see also Section 6 about the
reporting format.
If a single IP address pair is used, then we RECOMMEND to use
* a fixed, larger source port number range (e.g., a few times
10,000)
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* a variable size destination port number range (e.g. 10; 100;
1,000; etc.), where its expedient granularity depends on the
purpose.
5.2. Scalability Against the Number of CPU Cores
Stateful NATxy gateways are often implemented in software that are
not bound to a specific hardware but can be executed by commodity
servers. To facilitate the comparison of their performance, it can
be useful to determine
* the performance of the various implementations using a single core
of a well known CPU
* the scale up of the performance of the various implementations
with the number of CPU cores.
If the number of the available CPU cores is a power of two, then we
recommend to perform the tests with 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. number of
active CPU cores of the DUT.
6. Reporting Format
Measurements MUST be executed multiple times to achieve statistically
reliable results. The report of the results MUST contain the number
of the repetitions of the measurements. We RECOMMEND median as the
summarizing function of the results complemented with the first
percentile and the 99th percentile as indices of the dispersion of
the results. Average and standard deviation MAY also be reported.
All parameters and settings that may influence the performance of the
DUT MUST be reported. Some of them may be specific to the given
NATxy gateway implementation, like the "hashsize" (hash table size)
and "nf_conntrack_max" (number of connection tracking table entries)
values for iptables or the limit of the number of states for OpenBSD
PF (set by the "set limit states number" command in the pf.conf
file).
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number of sessions (req.) 0.4M 4M 40M 400M
source port numbers (req.) 40,000 40,000 40,000 40,000
destination port numbers (req.) 10 100 1,000 10,000
"hashsize" (i.s.) 2^17 2^20 2^23 2^27
"nf_conntrack_max" (i.s.) 2^20 2^23 2^26 2^30
num. sessions / "hashsize" (i.s.) 3.05 3.81 4.77 2.98
number of experiments (req.) 10 10 10 10
error of binary search (req.) 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000
connections/s median (req.)
connections/s 1st perc. (req.)
connections/s 99th perc. (req.)
Figure 6: Example table: Maximum connection establishment rate of
iptables against the number of sessions
Figure 6 shows an example for table headings for reporting the
measurement results for the scalability of the iptables stateful
NAT44 implementation against the number of sessions. We have
indicated the always required fields (req.) and the implementation
specific ones (i.s.). In row 6, we also added a computed value, the
number of sessions per hashsize ratio, what helps the reader to
interpret the achieved maximum connection establishment rate. (A
lower value results in shorter linked lists hanging on the entries of
the hash table and thus facilitating higher performance. The ratio
is varying, because the number of sessions is always a power of 10,
whereas hash table size is a power of 2.) To reflect the accuracy of
the results, we have also added the value of the "error" of the
binary search, which expresses the stopping criterion for the binary
search. The binary search stops, when the difference of the "higher
limit" and "lower limit" of the binary search is less than or equal
to "error".
The table MUST be complemented with reporting the relevant parameters
of the DUT. If the DUT is a general purpose computer and some
software NATxy gateway implementation is tested, then hardware
description SHOULD include: computer type, CPU type and number of
active CPU cores, memory type, size and speed, network interface card
type (reflecting also the speed), the fact that direct cable
connections were used or the type of the switch used for
interconnecting the Tester and the DUT. Operating system type and
version, kernel version, and the version of the NATxy gateway
implementation (including last commit date and number if applicable)
SHOULD also be given.
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7. Implementation and Experience
The "stateful" branch of siitperf [SIITPERF] is an implementation of
this concept. It is documented in this (open access) paper
[LEN2022].
Our experience with this methodology using siitperf for measuring the
scalability of the iptables stateful NAT44 and Jool stateful NAT64
implementations is described in
[I-D.lencse-v6ops-transition-scalability].
8. Limitations of using UDP as Transport Layer Protocol
Stateful NATxy solutions handle TCP and UDP differently, e.g.
iptables uses 30s timeout for UDP and 60s timeout for TCP. Thus
benchmarking results produced using UDP do not necessarily
characterize the performance of a NATxy gateway well enough, when
they are used for forwarding Internet traffic. As for the given
example, timeout values of the DUT may be adjusted, but it requires
extra consideration.
Other differences in handling UDP or TCP are also possible. Thus we
recommend that further investigations are to be performed in this
field.
As a mitigation of this problem, we recommend that testing with
protocols usig TCP (like HTTP and HTTPS) can be performed as
described in [I-D.ietf-bmwg-ngfw-performance]. This approach also
solves the potential problem of protocol helpers may be present in
the stateful DUT.
9. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Al Morton, Sarah Banks, Edwin
Cordeiro, Lukasz Bromirski, Sandor Repas, Tamas Hetenyi, Timothy
Winters, and Eduard Vasilenko for their comments.
This work was supported by the Japan Trust International Research
Cooperation Program of the National Institute of Information and
Communications Technology (NICT), Japan.
10. IANA Considerations
This document does not make any request to IANA.
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11. Security Considerations
We have no further security considerations beyond that of [RFC8219].
Perhaps they should be cited here so that they be applied not only
for the benchmarking of IPv6 transition technologies, but also for
the benchmarking of stateful NATxy gateways.
12. References
12.1. Normative References
[RFC1918] Rekhter, Y., Moskowitz, B., Karrenberg, D., de Groot, G.
J., and E. Lear, "Address Allocation for Private
Internets", BCP 5, RFC 1918, DOI 10.17487/RFC1918,
February 1996, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1918>.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC2544] Bradner, S. and J. McQuaid, "Benchmarking Methodology for
Network Interconnect Devices", RFC 2544,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2544, March 1999,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2544>.
[RFC4814] Newman, D. and T. Player, "Hash and Stuffing: Overlooked
Factors in Network Device Benchmarking", RFC 4814,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4814, March 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4814>.
[RFC5180] Popoviciu, C., Hamza, A., Van de Velde, G., and D.
Dugatkin, "IPv6 Benchmarking Methodology for Network
Interconnect Devices", RFC 5180, DOI 10.17487/RFC5180, May
2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5180>.
[RFC6146] Bagnulo, M., Matthews, P., and I. van Beijnum, "Stateful
NAT64: Network Address and Protocol Translation from IPv6
Clients to IPv4 Servers", RFC 6146, DOI 10.17487/RFC6146,
April 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6146>.
[RFC6890] Cotton, M., Vegoda, L., Bonica, R., Ed., and B. Haberman,
"Special-Purpose IP Address Registries", BCP 153,
RFC 6890, DOI 10.17487/RFC6890, April 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6890>.
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[RFC7599] Li, X., Bao, C., Dec, W., Ed., Troan, O., Matsushima, S.,
and T. Murakami, "Mapping of Address and Port using
Translation (MAP-T)", RFC 7599, DOI 10.17487/RFC7599, July
2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7599>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
[RFC8219] Georgescu, M., Pislaru, L., and G. Lencse, "Benchmarking
Methodology for IPv6 Transition Technologies", RFC 8219,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8219, August 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8219>.
12.2. Informative References
[DUST1964] Durstenfeld, R., "Algorithm 235: Random
permutation", Communications of the ACM, vol. 7, no. 7,
p.420., DOI 10.1145/364520.364540, July 1964,
<https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/364520.364540>.
[I-D.ietf-bmwg-ngfw-performance]
Balarajah, B., Rossenhoevel, C., and Monkman,
"Benchmarking Methodology for Network Security Device
Performance", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
ietf-bmwg-ngfw-performance-15, 22 October 2022,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-bmwg-
ngfw-performance-15>.
[I-D.lencse-v6ops-transition-scalability]
Lencse, G., "Scalability of IPv6 Transition Technologies
for IPv4aaS", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
lencse-v6ops-transition-scalability-04, 23 October 2022,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-lencse-v6ops-
transition-scalability-04>.
[IIR2020] Kurahashi, T., Matsuzaki, Y., Sasaki, T., Saito, T., and
F. Tsutsuji, "Periodic observation report: Internet trends
as seen from IIJ infrastructure - 2020", Internet
Infrastructure Review, vol. 49, December 2020,
<https://www.iij.ad.jp/en/dev/iir/pdf/
iir_vol49_report_EN.pdf>.
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[LEN2015] Lencse, G., "Estimation of the Port Number Consumption of
Web Browsing", IEICE Transactions on Communications, vol.
E98-B, no. 8. pp. 1580-1588, DOI DOI:
10.1587/transcom.E98.B.1580, 1 August 2015,
<http://www.hit.bme.hu/~lencse/publications/
e98-b_8_1580.pdf>.
[LEN2020] Lencse, G., "Adding RFC 4814 Random Port Feature to
Siitperf: Design, Implementation and Performance
Estimation", International Journal of Advances in
Telecommunications, Electrotechnics, Signals and Systems,
vol 9, no 3, pp. 18-26., DOI 10.11601/ijates.v9i3.291,
2020, <http://www.hit.bme.hu/~lencse/
publications/291-1113-1-PB.pdf>.
[LEN2022] Lencse, G., "Design and Implementation of a Software
Tester for Benchmarking Stateful NAT64xy Gateways: Theory
and Practice of Extending Siitperf for Stateful
Tests", Computer Communications, vol. 172, no. 1, pp.
75-88, August 1, 2022, DOI 10.1016/j.comcom.2022.05.028,
2022, <http://www.hit.bme.hu/~lencse/publications/ECC-
2022-SFNAT64xy-Tester-published.pdf>.
[SIITPERF] Lencse, G., "Siitperf: An RFC 8219 compliant SIIT and
stateful NAT64/NAT44 tester written in C++ using
DPDK", source code, available from GitHub, 2019-2022,
<https://github.com/lencsegabor/siitperf>.
Appendix A. Change Log
A.1. 00
Initial version.
A.2. 01
Updates based on the comments received on the BMWG mailing list and
minor corrections.
A.3. 02
Section 4.4 was completely re-written. As a consequence, the
occurrences of the now undefined "mostly different" source port
number destination port number combinations were deleted from
Section 4.5, too.
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A.4. 03
Added Section 4.3 about the consideration of the cases of stateful
operation.
Consistency checking. Removal of some parts obsoleted by the
previous re-writing of Section 4.4.
Added Section 4.8 about the method for measuring connection tear down
rate.
Updates for Section 7 about the implementation and experience.
A.5. 04
Update of the abstract.
Added Section 4.6 about validation of connection establishment.
Added Section 4.9 about the method for measuring connection tracking
table capacity.
Consistency checking and corrections.
A.6. 00 - WG item
Added measurement setup for Stateful NAT64 gateways.
Consistency checking and corrections.
A.7. 01
Added Section 4.5.1 about typical types of measurement series and
reporting format.
A.8. 02
Added the usage of multiple IP addresses.
Section 4.5.1 was removed and split into two Sections: Section 5
about scalability measurements and Section 6 about reporting format.
Authors' Addresses
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Gabor Lencse
Szechenyi Istvan University
Gyor
Egyetem ter 1.
H-9026
Hungary
Email: lencse@sze.hu
Keiichi Shima
SoftBank Corp.
1-7-1 Kaigan, Tokyo
105-7529
Japan
Email: shima@wide.ad.jp
URI: https://softbank.co.jp/
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