Benchmarks for IP forwarding tables

IPv4 and IPv6 route tables are ever changing and a subject of constant study. The Network Processing Forum (NPF) required a parameterized selection of IPv4/IPv6 route tables, real and synthetic, to enable benchmarking the performance of systems that include network processors and search engines (co-processors). The benchmarks have scalable parameters, and are to be run in a standard way, as specified in the NPF IP Forwarding Implementation Agreement. A synthetic traffic generator was also required to implement the benchmarks. Requirements were collected, and a freely available software toolkit was created. The kit has two sets of components - one set which generates IPv4 forwarding tables in the range of 1000 to 1 million prefixes, along with IPv6 tables of size 400 to 1200 prefixes, and another set which generates synthetic traffic patterns for the benchmarks. The toolkit's programs can be used for NPF benchmark certification, or as a suite of helpful table and traffic generation tools. This paper explains the empirical schemes devised to create IPv4 and IPv6 route tables in line with these requirements, along with the algorithms used to implement the schemes. It also describes the problem of generating traffic to exercise the route tables produced using the previous schemes. The results obtained by running this software to generate route tables are presented and evaluated.