Inject Delay between Virtual Machines in a VLAN

Question

We'd like to simulate the impact of locality using VMs within a on a public cloud (say AWS EC2).

To do this, we would like to inject delays in packets such that we can simulate a particular network topology.

Assume that there are three VMs: A, B, C

  | 

A |  <- 5 μs delay -> B 

  | <---- 25 μs delay ----> C

How could we most easily inject a 5 μs delay (or any arbitrary value) for connections between A and B, versus a 25 μs delay between A and C? Any solution is appreciated (Linux kernel level changes on each VM / creating an overlay network / ...).

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 24 '17 at 08:35

Creating delays can be simulated by the traffic shaping algorithms supported by the Linux kernel. From the netem manual:

# tc qdisc add dev eth0 root handle 1: prio
# tc qdisc add dev eth0 parent 1:3 handle 30: tbf rate 20kbit buffer 1600 limit  3000
# tc qdisc add dev eth0 parent 30:1 handle 31: netem  delay 200ms 10ms distribution normal
# tc filter add dev eth0 protocol ip parent 1:0 prio 3 u32  match ip dst <IP_of_server_B>/32 flowid 1:3

Which, when issued on Server A creates a 200ms delay with ± 10ms random variation in the traffic to server B.

Inject Delay between Virtual Machines in a VLAN

1 Answers1