tcpulse: A TCP/UDP load generator that provides fine-grained, flow-level control

Summary

tcpulse tcpulse is a high-performance TCP/UDP connection load generator and performance measurement tool written in Go. What is tcpulse? tcpulse is a specialized tool designed to measure and analyze the performance characteristics of network connections. It operates in two primary modes: Server mode ( -s/--server ) : Acts as an echo server that accepts TCP/UDP connections and echoes back received data : Acts as an echo server that accepts TCP/UDP connections and echoes back received data Client mode ( -c/--client ): Generates configurable load against target servers and measures connection performance metrics Why use tcpulse? Network performance testing is crucial for: Load testing : Validate server capacity and identify bottlenecks before production deployment : Validate server capacity and identify bottlenecks before production deployment Connection establishment performance : Measure how quickly new connections can be established (ephemeral mode) : Measure how quickly new connections can be established (ephemeral mode) Sustained connection performance : Test throughput and latency of long-lived connections (persistent mode) : Test throughput and latency of long-lived connections (persistent mode) Protocol comparison : Compare TCP vs UDP performance characteristics : Compare TCP vs UDP performance characteristics Infrastructure validation : Verify network infrastructure can handle expected traffic patterns : Verify network infrastructure can handle expected traffic patterns Performance regression testing: Detect performance degradations in network services How it works tcpulse provides two distinct connection patterns to simulate real-world usage: Persistent Connections Maintains long-lived connections and sends multiple requests per connection. This simulates applications like web services with connection pooling or persistent database connections. Ephemeral Connections Creates new connections for each request, immediately closing them afterward. This simulates s...