Packet Capture in 10-Gigabit Ethernet Environments Using Contemporary Commodity Hardware

Abstract. Tracing traffic using commodity hardware in contemporary highspeed access or aggregation networks such as 10-Gigabit Ethernet is an increasingly common yet challenging task. In this paper we investigate if today’s commodity hardware and software is in principle able to capture traffic from a fully loaded Ethernet. We find that this is only possible for data rates up to 1 Gigabit/s without reverting to using special hardware due to, e. g., limitations with the current PC buses. Therefore, we propose a novel way for monitoring higher speed interfaces (e. g., 10-Gigabit) by distributing their traffic across a set of lower speed interfaces (e. g., 1-Gigabit). This opens the next question: which system configuration is capable of monitoring one such 1-Gigabit/s interface? To answer this question we present a methodology for evaluating the performance impact of different system components including different CPU architectures and different operating system. Our results indic...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: PAM
• Authors: Fabian Schneider, Jörg Wallerich, Anja Feldmann
• Keywords: Commodity Hardware, Computer Networks, PAM 2007, Speed Interfaces, Today’s Commodity Hardware