Ostinato – Network Traffic Generator

July 19, 2019 Comments Off

Ostinato is a packet generator and network traffic generator with a friendly GUI. Also a powerful Python API for network test automation. Craft and send packets of several streams with different protocols at different rates. Think of it as “Wireshark in Reverse”.

Ostinato aims to provide a traffic generator and network testing tool for every network engineer and developer – something not possible today with existing commercial network test equipment. With the right tool, network developers and engineers can do their jobs better and improve the quality of networking products.

Some of the features included are:

Useful for both network load testing and functional testing
Use via GUI or Python API
Create and configure multiple streams
Configure stream rates, bursts, no. of packets
Interface level receive/transmit statistics and rates for realtime network monitoring and measurement
Network Device Emulation (ARP and ICMP) for multiple IP hosts to aid in network traffic simulation
Support for the most common standard protocols
Set a value for any field of any protocol
Vary packet fields across packets at run time e.g. changing IP/MAC addresses
Stack protocols in any arbitrary order to test error cases
User provided Hex Dump – specify some or all bytes in a packet
User defined script to substitute for an unimplemented protocol (EXPERIMENTAL)
Open and edit PCAP files, replay and save back
One controller, many agent
Many controllers can share an agent
Exclusive control of a port to prevent the OS from sending stray packets provides a controlled testing environment
Capture network traffic (needs Wireshark to view the captured packets)
Cross-Platform – runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS
Also available as a Live CD/USB and Virtual Appliance
FLOSS – Free, Libre, Open-Source Software
Framework to add new protocol builders easily