Main Port Config

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Fig. 66 Port Properties - Main

Identification

Table 20 Identification

Property

Explanation

Name

The unique short-form name for the port

Description

A user-definable string label for the port

Interface Type

The Xena port interface type

Reserved By

If the port has been reserved by a user, this field will show the username of the reserver.

TX Control

Table 21 TX Control

Property

Explanation

Sync Status

The current sync state for the port. The port can either be IN SYNC (sync detected) or NO SYNC (no sync detected).

Traffic Status

The current traffic status for the port.

Traffic Control

This button enables you to either start or stop traffic on the port. Or restart traffic with dynamic changes seamlessly.

Dynamic Traffic Change

If this option is checked, the port will allow dynamic changes to the traffic while the traffic is running on the port. As soon as the Restart button is pressed, traffic is changed dynamically seamlessly.

Include in Global Control

If this option is checked and the port is part of the current testbed the port traffic state will be controlled by the Start/Stop buttons in the Global Statistics panel.

Enable TX Output

Determines if the port should enable its transmitter, or keep the outgoing link down

TX Time Limit

The maximum amount of time the port should transmit when enabled. If set to zero the port will transmit until stopped manually.

TX Time Elapsed

The amount of time the port has currently been transmitting

Stop After

Stop port transmission after the specified number of packets are sent

Note

(*) Feature is only supported by legacy 40G/100G ports. (**) Feature requires software release 76 or higher.

TX Profile

Table 22 TX Profile

Property

Explanation

Port TX Mode

This property determines the scheduling mode for outgoing traffic from the port, i.e. how multiple logical streams are merged onto one physical port. Refer to the XOA CLI Documentation for further information.

Rate Fraction **

The port-level rate of the traffic transmitted for a port in sequential TX mode, expressed as a percentage of the effective rate for the port.

Packet Rate **

The port-level rate of the traffic transmitted for a port in sequential TX mode, expressed in packet per second.

Bit Rate **

The port-level rate of the traffic transmitted for a port in sequential TX mode, expressed in bits per second.

Inter Packet Gap **

The calculated mean inter-packet gap with the current TX profile settings.

Burst Period **

Time in micro seconds from start of sending a group of bursts till start of sending next group of bursts.

Note

(*) This property is only available when the Port TX Mode is set to Sequential.

(**) This property is only available when the Port TX Mode is set to Burst. This property requires software release 76 or higher.

Port Impairments

This section describes impairments which will affect the entire port. I.e it will affect all streams defined for the selected port.

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Fig. 67 Port impairments

PMA Error Injection

PMA Error Injection allows the user to insert bit errors onto the link.

Please observe that PMA Error Injection is configured at a port level and will affect all streams configured for the selected port.

Table 24 Port Impairments

Property

Explanation

Function

Enables Link Flap or PMA error injection.

Duration Link Flap

Time in ms the link is taken down. Range: 10 ms to 1000 ms; step size 1 ms.

Repeat Period

Time between link down. Range:10 ms to 50000 ms; step size 10 ms. “Repeat Period” must be larger than “Duration”.

Repetitions Link Flap

Number of Link Flaps. Range: 0, 1 to 64K; step size 1. 0 = continuous until stopped.

BER Coeff

PMA Error injection: Bit Error Rate coefficient. Range 0.01 to 9.99; step size 0.01.

BER Exp

PMA Error injection: Bit Error Rate exponent. Range -17 to -3; step size 1

Control

Pressing Start will start the configured Link Flap/PMA Error injection, pressing Stop will stop any ongoing Link Flap/PMA Error injection.

Misc. Settings

Table 25 Misc. Settings

Property

Explanation

Flash Port LEDs

If checked, this property will make the test port LED for a particular port flash on and off with a 1-second interval. This is helpful when you need to identify a specific port within a chassis.

Layer-1 Control

Table 26 Layer-1 Control

Property

Explanation

Port Speed Selection

Controls the port speed selection. This property is only available for ports that support a configurable port speed.

Min. Average Inter-Frame Gap

The minimum average total interframe gap (including preamble and SFD)

Speed Reduction

Allows you to specify a speed reduction value for the port. The speed reduction is specified as a PPM value between 0 and 100 in steps of 10. The speed reduction is applied to the transmit side of a port, resulting in an effective traffic rate that is slightly lower than the rate of the physical interface. Speed reduction is effectuated by inserting short idle periods in the generated traffic pattern to consume part of the port’s physical bandwidth. The port’s clock speed is not altered.

Current Port Speed

The currently detected port speed

Effective Port Speed

The effective speed of the port taking any configured speed reduction into account.

Auto-Negotiation Enable

Controls whether the port will support auto-negotiation

BroadR-Reach Mode

Controls whether a BroadR-Reach transceiver will be in Master or Slave mode. This property is only shown when a BroadR-Reach transceiver is installed in the port or the port itself supports Automotive Ethernet.

Note

We support Technica Engineering BroadR-Reach transceivers.

  • TE-1440 Technica Engineering 100/1000Base-T1 Transceiver

Stagger Factor

This property delays the start of traffic generation on one port relative to the activation of global start. The delay is programmed in steps of 64 µs. The Stagger Factor will work between ports on test modules installed in the same chassis. NB: This requires that Sync.Start in Global Stats. under the Options tap has been checked.

TCVR Temperature

The currently detected transceiver temperature if supported by the transceiver.

Optical RX Power

The currently detected received optional power. This property value is only available for optical ports if supported by the transceiver.

Fault Signaling Mode

Sets the remote/local fault signaling behavior of the port (performed by the Reconciliation Sub-layer). The following modes can be configured:

  1. Normal: Acts according to 802.3 standard: i.e. when receiving a bad signal, it transmits Remote Fault indications on the output and when receiving a Remote Fault indication from the far-side it will transmit IDLE sequences. By default, this mode is enabled,

  2. Force Local: Port will continuously transmit Local Fault indication on the TX output (which is usually not allowed by the standard).

  3. Force Remote: Port will continuously transmit Remote Fault indication on the TX output.

  4. Disabled: Port will relay the traffic from the TX core regardless of what it receives on the input.

Local Fault Status

Indicates Reconciliation Sub-layer signaling status for local port. Status is either OK or Fault

Remote Fault Status

Indicates Reconciliation Sub-layer signaling status for remote port. Status is either OK or Fault

Layer-2 Control

Table 27 Layer-2 Control

Property

Explanation

MAC Address

The port MAC address

MAC Auto-Training

The interval in seconds with which the port should broadcast a MAC learning frame. Set to 0 to disable.

React to PAUSE Frames

Control whether the port should react to received PAUSE frames

React to PFC Frames

Control whether the port should react to received PFC (Priority Flow Control) frames. Use check boxes to select which priority levels the port reacts to.

Gap Monitor Start

Specifies the time period that will trigger the gap monitor start. The maximum allowed gap between packets, in microseconds, 0 to 134.000 microseconds. (0 = disable gap monitor)

Gap Monitor Stop

Specifies the number of packets to receive to stop the gap monitor. The minimum number of good packets required, 0 to 1024 packets. (0 = disable gap monitor)

Note

The gap-start and gap-stop criteria for the port’s gap monitor. The gap monitor expects a steady stream of incoming packets, and detects larger-than-allowed gaps between them. Once a gap event is encountered it requires a certain number of consecutive packets below the threshold to end the event.

Refer to XOA CLI Documentation for more details.

Payload

Table 28 Payload

Property

Explanation

Payload Checksum Offset

The offset where payload checksum calculation starts. Valid values: 0; 8-127.

Random Seed

Used when generating traffic that requires random variation in packet length, payload, or modified fields

Max Stream Header Length

The maximum length of the defined stream headers. If you increase this you will at the same time reduce number of streams supported by the port. For a port that by default supports 256 streams

MIX Weights

Specify the weights for the MIX size packet distribution if supported by the port.

See also

Read details in MIX Weights.

TPLD Size

Specify the size of the TPLD for the port streams if supported by the port.

  • Default is Normal, which is a 20 byte TPLD.

  • Micro is a condensed version, which is useful when generating very small packets with relatively long headers (like IPv6). It has the following characteristics compared to the normal TPLD.

    • Only 6 byte long.

    • Less accurate mechanism to separate Xena-generated packets from other packets is the network - it is recommended not to have too much other traffic going into the receive Xena port, when micro TPLD is used.

    • No sequence checking (packet loss or packet misordering). The number of received packets for each stream can still be compared to the number of transmitted packets to detect packet loss once traffic has been stopped.

    • No payload error checking.

When the TPLD Size is changed, it will affect ALL streams on the port.

Payload Mode

Specify the payload mode used for the port streams if supported by the port. The following options are available:

  • Normal: The packet payload type is determined by the Payload Type property on the streams. This is the default behavior.

  • Extended Payload: Enable support for the extended payload feature for streams on this port (not supported by all modules). Read more in Stream Properties > Extended Payload.

  • Custom Data Field: Enable support for the custom data field feature for streams on this port (not supported by all modules). Read more in Stream Properties > Custom Data Field

MIX Weights

Internet Mix or IMIX refers to typical internet traffic traversing network equipment such as routers, switches or firewalls. When measuring equipment performance using an IMIX of packets, the performance is assumed to resemble what can be seen in “real-world” conditions.

IMIX configuration is per port. It means each test port can be configured a certain IMIX pattern.

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Fig. 70 Port MIX weights configuration

Each port has the same default IMIX configuration. If you want to customize the configuration, you should follow the steps:

  1. Reserve a test port.

  2. Click the port and find Resource Properties ‣ Main Port Config ‣ Main Properties ‣ Payload ‣ MIX Weights, click Set Weights.

  3. Configure the desired IMIX.

  4. You can save the port’s IMIX weight configuration by clicking Save MIX Weights on the top bar.

  5. You can also load a IMIX weight configuration to the port by clicking Load MIX Weights.

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Fig. 71 Stream MIX weights selection

To use the configured IMIX to generate packets, you should follow the step:

  1. Create a stream on the port you have configured IMIX weights.

  2. Click the stream and find Resource Properties ‣ Stream Properties ‣ Packet Content ‣ Packet Size Type, and select Mixed Sizes.

The stream will generate packet sizes based on the port’s IMIX weight configuration.

Loopback and Latency

Table 29 Loopback and Latency

Property

Explanation

Loopback Mode

The port loopback mode. (illustrated in Fig. 72)

  • Off: Traffic flows naturally out of the port

  • L1 RX-to-TX: Any received packet is bounced back through TX

  • L2 RX-to-TX: Same as L1 RX-to-TX yet it also swaps SRC MAC address with DST MAC address

  • L3 RX-to-TX: Same as L1 RX-to-TX yet it also swaps SRC IP address with DST IP address

  • TX(on)-to-RX: Packet goes out of TX but also internally direct to RX

  • TX(off)-to-TX: Packet goes directly to RX (No link sync needed)

  • Port-to-port: Any received packet goes out through the neighbor port

Refer to P_LOOPBACK in XOA CLI Documentation for more details.

Latency Mode

The port latency calculation mode.

Latency is measured by inserting a time-stamp in each packet when it is transmitted, and relating it to the time when the packet is received. There are four separate modes for calculating the latency:

  • Last-bit-out to last-bit-in, which measures basic bit-transit time, independent of packet length.

  • First-bit-out to last-bit-in, which adds the time taken to transmit the packet itself.

  • Last-bit-out to first-bit-in, which subtracts the time taken to transmit the packet itself. The same latency mode must be configured for the transmitting port and the receiving port; otherwise invalid measurements will occur.

  • First-bit-out to first-bit-in, which adds the time taken to transmit the packet itself, and subtracts the time taken to transmit the packet itself. The same latency mode must be configured for the transmitting port and the receiving port; otherwise invalid measurements will occur.

Refer to P_LATENCYMODE in XOA CLI Documentation for more details.

Latency Offset

The calibrated latency offset value.
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Fig. 72 Loopback Mode

IPv4 Properties

Table 30 IPV4 Properties

Property

Explanation

IPv4 Address

The IPv4 network address for the port. The address is used as the default source address field in the IP header of generated stream traffic, and the address is also used for support of the ARP and PING protocols.

IPv4 Subnet Mask

The IPv4 subnetwork mask for the port.

IPv4 Gateway

The default IPv4 gateway address for the port.

Reply to ARP Requests

Control whether the port will reply to incoming ARP requests

Reply to PINGv4 Requests

Control whether the port will reply to incoming PING requests

ARP/PINGv4 Address Wildcard

Specifies a mask that makes the port reply to ARP/PING for the masked addresses

DHCPv4 Client

This button will launch the DHCP Wizard for the port. Read more in DHCPv4 Client Wizard.

DHCPv4 Client Wizard

If your DUT contains a DHCP server (IPv4) you can use this to quickly assign IP addresses to your test port and/or the streams configured on the port. The addresses must be acquired from the DHCP server prior to starting the traffic. and will then be stored as part of the port and stream configuration.

Important

At present only IPv4 is supported. Support for IPv6 may be added in the future.

Wizard Operation

Selecting Targets

When you open the wizard you will be presented with the start page shown below. You can now select to acquire addresses for the port itself, the existing streams on the port, or both.

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Fig. 73 DHCP Client Wizard - Address Acquisition

Note

Please note that if you select to acquire addresses for your streams then they must all contain an IPv4 protocol segment. If the wizard detects that this is not the case you must exit the wizard and correct this manually.

Setting SMAC for Streams

To acquire addresses for streams each stream must be configured with a unique SMAC address in the initial Ethernet protocol segment.

On initial launch the wizard will determine if the SMAC addresses for the streams are unique within the scope of the port. If not it will offer to assist you in assigning unique addresses as indicated in the Fig. 74 below.

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Fig. 74 DHCP Client Wizard - Setting SMAC

Note

Please note that the wizard will not ensure that the stream SMAC addresses are globally unique. It will only check if the SMAC addresses are unique within the scope of the port on which they reside.

Acquiring Addresses

Once all requirements are satisfied the wizard will start to acquire addresses from the DHCP server. You can follow the progress in the wizard as shown in Fig. 75 below.

The Counters field at the top show the number of DHCP packet sent and received. The grid below that show a summary of the communication with the DHCP server.

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Fig. 75 DHCP Client Wizard - Acquiring Addresses

IPv4 Multicast Properties

Table 31 IPv4 Multicast Properties

Property

Explanation

MC Addresses

Specifies a list of multicast addresses to send IGMPv2IGMPv3 requests to.

Send Join Request

When this button is clicked a single IGMPv2 Join request is sent to the specified multicast address.

VLAN

Check this box to add a VLAN tag header to sent IGMPv2IGMPv3 requests

Tag

Value of VLAN tag

Priority

Priority bits in VLAN tag header

DEI

Drop Eligible Indicator in VLAN tag header

Send Requests

For Protocol Version IGMPv2 a single request is sent when the related button is clicked:

Send Join Request

Send Leave to AllRouters

IP Address (224.0.0.2)

Send Leave Request

Send General Query Request

Send Group Query Request

For Protocol Version IGMPv3 a single request is sent when the related button is clicked:

  • Send Change to Exclude Request

  • Send Change to Include Request

  • Send Include Request

  • Send Exclude Request

Repeat Multicast Join

Control whether the Join command should periodically be re-transmitted

Multicast Join Period

The Join retransmit period in seconds

Protocol Version

Set Multicast Protocol version to IGMPv2 or IGMPv3

IPv6 Properties

Table 32 IPv6 Properties

Property

Explanation

IPv6 Address

The IPv6 network address for the port. The address is used as the default source address field in the IP header of generated stream traffic, and the address is also used for support of the NDP and PING protocols.

IPv6 Prefix

The IPv6 subnetwork prefix for the port,

IPv6 Gateway

The default IPv6 gateway address for the port.

Reply to NDP Requests

Control whether the port will reply to incoming NDP requests

Reply to PINGv6 Requests

Control whether the port will reply to incoming PING requests

NDP/PINGv6 Address Wildcard

Specifies a prefix that makes the port reply to NDP/PING for the masked addresses

ARP/NDP Address Tables

Each Xena test port contains two address tables, one for IPv4 (ARP) and one for IPv6 (NDP). Each address table can contain a number of entries. Each entry defines a set of criteria for handling incoming ARP/NDP requests. Each table can be accessed by the Edit ARP Table and Edit NDP Table buttons in this section. Pressing each button will launch a dialog as shown below

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Fig. 76 ARP Table

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Fig. 77 NDP Table

New entries can be added by pressing the Click here to add new item bar. Existing entries can be edited by selecting the various fields or deleted by pressing the button with the red stop sign to the right.

Changes to the table are not sent to the test chassis until the OK button is pressed.

As an alternative you can press the Auto-Assign Tables Generate button. If you do that the content of the ARP and NDP address tables are automatically generated based on the defined streams for the port. All existing entries in the tables will be removed.

General Handling of Incoming Requests

Any incoming ARP or NDP request is handled in the following prioritized order:

  1. If the address table for the IP version used by the request contains 1 or more entries the table is searched for a match for the Target IP Address in the request. If a match is found a reply is formatted according to the matched entry definition and sent. If no matches are found in the table the request is ignored.

  2. If the address table for the IP version used by the request is empty the request is handled by the legacy method, i.e. matched to the defined port IP address optionally masked by the wildcard value.

Address Table Matching

Incoming ARP/NDP requests are matched to the address table by comparing the Target IP Address in the request with the IP Address value for each entry in the table, masked by the Prefix value. If a match is found the search is stopped and the matched entry used for the reply.

If two or more entries would match the Target IP Address then only the first matching entry is used.

The Prefix value can be used to have each entry match multiple IP addresses. Example: An IPv4 entry with IP Address = 10.0.0.1 and Prefix = 28 will match any address in the range 10.0.0.0 to 10.0.0.15. The default value for the Prefix is a full host mask, which means that only the specified IP address will match.

Formatting the Reply

If a match is found the ARP/NDP reply will be formatted according to the following rules:

  1. If the MAC Address field in the match entry is all-zeros (which is the default value) the SMAC address in the reply is set to the port MAC address. Otherwise the defined MAC Address value is used.

  2. If the Patch MAC option is checked the least significant bytes in the SMAC address is patched with the least significant bytes in the Target IP Address. Which bytes are patched is controlled by the Prefix value. This feature is relevant when using a Prefix value to reply to a range of IP addresses to ensure that each “emulated” port is returning a unique MAC address.

Port Resource Commands

This section describes the resource-specific commands available for ports in Edit ‣ Ports.

Table 33 Port Resource Commands

Property

Explanation

Must Reserve?

Refresh Port

Reload the configuration for the port and all child resources (streams, modifiers, etc) from the test chassis.

No

Reset Port

Reset the port configuration to default settings. Note that this removes all dynamic resources such as streams, modifiers, etc.

Yes

Clear Stats

Clear all TX and RX statistics counters on the port.

Yes

Start Traffic

Start traffic on the port. The port must contain at least one enabled stream.

Yes

Stop Traffic

Stop traffic on port.

Yes

Replay File

Load a PCAP file and replay it on the port. This function is described in details on Replay PCAP File.

Yes