simnet

simnet

A small Go library for simulating packet networks in-process. It provides drop-in net.PacketConn endpoints connected through configurable virtual links with bandwidth, latency, and MTU constraints. Useful for testing networking code without sockets or root privileges.

• Drop-in API: implements net.PacketConn
• Realistic links: per-direction bandwidth, latency, and MTU
• Backpressure/buffering: bandwidth–delay product aware queues
• Routers: perfect delivery, fixed-latency, simple firewall/NAT-like routing
• Deterministic testing: opt-in synctest-based tests for time control

Install

go get github.com/marcopolo/simnet

Quick start: high-level Simnet

Create a simulated network and two endpoints. Each endpoint gets a bidirectional link with independent uplink/downlink settings. Start the network, then use the returned net.PacketConns as usual.

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "net"
    "time"

    "github.com/marcopolo/simnet"
)

func main() {
    n := &simnet.Simnet{}
    settings := simnet.NodeBiDiLinkSettings{
        Downlink: simnet.LinkSettings{BitsPerSecond: 10 * simnet.Mibps},
        Uplink:   simnet.LinkSettings{BitsPerSecond: 10 * simnet.Mibps},
        Latency:  5 * time.Millisecond,
    }

    addrA := &net.UDPAddr{IP: net.ParseIP("1.0.0.1"), Port: 9001}
    addrB := &net.UDPAddr{IP: net.ParseIP("1.0.0.2"), Port: 9002}

    client := n.NewEndpoint(addrA, settings)
    server := n.NewEndpoint(addrB, settings)

    _ = n.Start()
    defer n.Close()

    // Echo server
    go func() {
        buf := make([]byte, 1024)
        server.SetReadDeadline(time.Now().Add(2 * time.Second))
        n, src, err := server.ReadFrom(buf)
        if err != nil { return }
        server.WriteTo(append([]byte("echo: "), buf[:n]...), src)
    }()

    client.SetReadDeadline(time.Now().Add(2 * time.Second))
    _, _ = client.WriteTo([]byte("ping"), addrB)

    buf := make([]byte, 1024)
    nRead, _, _ := client.ReadFrom(buf)
    fmt.Println(string(buf[:nRead]))
}

Configuration

• LinkSettings
  • BitsPerSecond int: bandwidth cap (bits/sec)
  • MTU int: maximum packet size (bytes). Oversized packets are dropped
• NodeBiDiLinkSettings
  • Downlink LinkSettings: settings for incoming traffic
  • Uplink LinkSettings: settings for outgoing traffic
  • Latency time.Duration: one-way latency for downlink packets
  • LatencyFunc func(Packet) time.Duration: optional function to compute variable latency per downlink packet
• Use simnet.Mibps for convenience when computing bitrates

Routers

• PerfectRouter: instant delivery, in-memory switch
• FixedLatencyRouter: wraps perfect delivery with a fixed extra latency
• SimpleFirewallRouter: NAT/firewall-like behavior. A node must first send to a peer before inbound from that peer is allowed. You can also mark addresses as publicly reachable:

fw := &simnet.SimpleFirewallRouter{}
fw.SetAddrPubliclyReachable(serverAddr)

Link model (SimulatedLink)

Each endpoint created by Simnet sits behind a SimulatedLink that:

• Rate-limits using a token bucket (via golang.org/x/time/rate)
• Adds latency via a timed queue
• Drops packets over MTU
• Buffers up to the bandwidth–delay product

Deadlines and stats

• SimConn implements SetDeadline, SetReadDeadline, SetWriteDeadline
  • Exceeded deadlines return simnet.ErrDeadlineExceeded
• Stats() returns counts of bytes/packets sent/received

Testing

Run the standard test suite:

go test ./...

Some tests use Go's synctest experimental time control. Enable them with:

GOEXPERIMENT=synctest go test ./...

(requires Go 1.24+)

License

BSD-3