/socket_retarder

artificially slow down socket traffic

Primary LanguageC++MIT LicenseMIT

License

See LICENSE.txt.

What is it good for

You can artificially slow down socket traffic (TCP, UDP) and drop/duplicate/damage/shuffle UDP datagrams for almost any program without any modification of that program. Good for testing purposes.

Usage

  1. Run make in the socket retarder directory.

  2. Run your program:

    $ LD_PRELOAD=/path_to_the_socket_retarder/libsocket_retarder.so program_to_slow_down

or:

$ export LD_PRELOAD=/path_to_the_socket_retarder/libsocket_retarder.so
$ program_to_slow_down

For Mac OS X

$ DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=/path_to_the_socket_retarder/libsocket_retarder.so DYLD_FORCE_FLAT_NAMESPACE=y program_to_slow_down

Configuration

by environment variables

SOCKET_RETARDER_DEBUG=0
  • debug level - 0=none, 1=verbose, 2=more verbose
SOCKET_RETARDER_DNS=0|1
  • retard communication on port 53 (default: 0)
SOCKET_RETARDER_DISTRIBUTION=normal|uniform
  • default: "normal"
SOCKET_RETARDER_NORMALDIST_MEAN
  • default: 1000 [ms, integer]
SOCKET_RETARDER_NORMALDIST_VARIANCE
  • default: 500 [ms, integer]
SOCKET_RETARDER_UNIFORMDIST_A
  • default: 500
SOCKET_RETARDER_UNIFORMDIST_B
  • default: 1500
SOCKET_RETARDER_UDP_DROP_PROBABILITY
  • probability of UDP datagram to be dropped, 0.0..1.0, default: 0.0
SOCKET_RETARDER_UDP_DAMAGE_PROBABILITY
  • probability of UDP datagram to be damaged, 0.0..1.0, default: 0.0
SOCKET_RETARDER_UDP_DUPLICATE_PROBABILITY
  • probability of UDP datagram to be duplicated, 0.0..1.0, default: 0.0

see ./runner_example_*.sh

Java workaround

If you don't experience an influence of the retarder then execute your program with a following flag:

$ java -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true ...

Limitations

Slows down only send() (TCP/IPv4, only connect() side), sendto() (UDP/IPv4), sendmsg(). Some programs need to be run under the user root like "ping". They have a setuid flag and there is a problem with an environment/LD_PRELOAD.

Retarder for TCP connections creates its own proxy on ports 20000-20500. So if you need to use those ports you have to recompile the retarder with different contants PROXY_PORT_START and PROXY_PORT_STOP.

And many other limitations :-)