What is net-checker

The net-checker is a set of tools (ansible runner and python report parser) to perform network performance tests (iperf3) and generate report diagrams. It also collects all important system information before and after test like:

• interface statistics
• sysctl values
• atop logs

Usage

Prepare ansible inventory

For example we have 2 compute hosts and 4 VMs running on them. We would like to test the following connectivity scenarios:

• hostA -> hostB performance between compute hosts
• vmA1 (hostA) --> vmA2 (hostA) performance between VMs on same compute
• vmA1 (hostA) --> vmB1 (hostB) performance between VMs on different computes.

---
all:
  vars:
    ansible_ssh_private_key_file: /home/ubuntu/bootstrap/dev/ssh_key
    ansible_user: mcc-user
  hosts:
    localhost:
      ansible_host: localhost
      ansible_connection: local
    hostA:
      ansible_host: 172.16.56.94
    hostB:
      ansible_host: 172.16.56.93
    vmA1:
     ansible_host: 192.168.15.108
    vmA2:
     ansible_host: 192.168.15.147
    vmB1:
      ansible_host: 192.168.15.205

  children:
    iperfs:
      hosts:
        hostA:
          iperf_targets:
            - 172.16.56.93
        vmA1:
          iperf_targets:
            - 192.168.15.147
            - 192.168.15.205

Run performance tests

# Install requirements
pip3 install -r requirements.txt

ansible-playbook -i ansible/inventory.yaml ansible/perf.yaml

# Drink some coffee

# Save performance tests in reports directory
mkdir ./net_checker_reports
mv /tmp/net_checker_reports/ ./net_checker_reports/01_default

# Change some parameters, for example add bond transmit policy.
# Run tests one more time
ansible-playbook -i ansible/inventory.yaml ansible/perf.yaml
mv /tmp/net_checker_reports/ ./net_checker_reports/02_bond_hash

Create report graphs

python net-checker.py report

Example of reports