Testing applications or devices in large networks
View Patent ↗When testing network management applications, it is desirable to show that they will work with large or very large networks, to determine the upper bounds of the applications capabilities, and improvements which might increase the upper bounds. A method of testing a network application is disclosed mapping a layer-3 addresses of a real subnetwork onto a plurality of mapped layer-3 subnetwork addresses for conversations with applications or devices. Packets are modified to change a destination layer-3 address in a mapped subnetwork, pointing to corresponding real IP address and forwarding the packets. The conversation to which a response from a reallayer-3 address relates is identified. The source layer-3 address and packet contents are changed into the appropriate mapped subnetwork and the packet is forwarded to the application or device. An existing test network of any size may be used as the basis for testing the network management application.
1. A computer program on computer readable non-transitory medium loaded onto a digital computer and executed, when executed comprising the following steps:
receiving a packet from an application or a device;
if the packet belongs to an existing conversation then going to a session ID check process;
otherwise recording a mapped subnet and a session ID;
if said session ID is unique then going to a mapping process,
otherwise mapping said session ID to a unique session ID;
recording said unique session ID and going to the mapping process;
wherein the session ID check process comprises the following steps: if the session ID is unique then going to the mapping process,
otherwise mapping the session ID to the unique session ID and going to the mapping process;
wherein the mapping process comprises the following steps: mapping a destination IP address to a real IP address equivalents;
mapping a source IP address, the destination IP address, a source MAC address and a destination MAC address in the packet to their real address equivalents;
updating a checksum and field lengths; and
sending the packet out onto a network.
2. A computer program on computer readable non-transitory medium loaded onto a digital computer and executed, when executed as claimed in claim 1 comprising the following steps:
receiving a packet from a real network;
if the packet from the real network does not belong to an existing conversation then going to a send process,
otherwise if there was not a unique session ID recorded in the earlier steps, then going to a continuation process;
mapping back to the original session ID going to the continuation process;
wherein the continuation process comprises the following steps: mapping the source IP address to the corresponding mapped IP address;
mapping a source IP address, the destination IP address, a source MAC address and a destination MAC address in the packet from the real network to their mapped address equivalents;
updating all appropriate checksums and field lengths and going to the send process;
wherein the send process comprises the following steps: sending the packet to the application or device.