CN100461717C - A kind of communication equipment and testing method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

A communication device and a testing method thereof, wherein a loopback processing module performs software loopback processing on device communication data or business data; the loopback processing is an upward loopback or a downward loopback, and the upward loopback is the The loopback processing module returns the data that the upper layer software module will send to the lower layer software module or hardware to the upper layer software module; the loopback is the data that the loopback processing module sends the hardware or the lower layer software module to the upper layer software module Intercept midway and send back to the lower layer software module or hardware. The present invention overcomes the shortcomings of the existing communication equipment, such as limited test data flow, affected forwarding after loopback, high dependence on the hardware environment, and heavy test code writing workload, etc. It has no impact on forwarding, reduces the dependence on the hardware environment, and reduces the workload of writing test codes.

Description

A kind of communication equipment and testing method thereof

technical field

The invention relates to the technical field of communication, in particular to a communication device and a testing method thereof.

Background technique

At present, a large number of devices are running on the communication network. Operators need to remotely manage all devices through unified network management software, which requires communication devices to support stable network management communication functions. In addition, a large part of communication equipment adopts the division of labor between the main control board and the service board. The main control board is responsible for the configuration and management of all business boards. Stability is also important.

However, since communication equipment is in use, the first thing it shows to users is its service capability, so various tests, including the equipment manufacturer's own test organization, put a lot of effort into the test of business functions and performance Among them, the means of testing the communication function of device management is weak. Often after the tested equipment is used on the Internet for a long time, problems in equipment communication management will be exposed, such as network management disconnection caused by unstable equipment communication.

Therefore, it has become an important issue to increase the testing methods for the communication function of the equipment and improve the testing intensity. In the prior art, the test of the communication function of the communication equipment is limited to the configuration and maintenance of the related functions of the equipment. For the network management, the equipment maintenance operation is performed by operating the network management software. configuration maintenance commands. When you want to test the stability of the communication function, the only way is to test for a long time, and the operation method of the test is still nothing more than executing all configuration maintenance commands.

The existing tests on the communication function of communication equipment have the following disadvantages:

1. The commands executed are limited, and the data characteristics involved cannot reach all the processing range supported by the communication processing function, let alone tests beyond the normal range, such as the packet length limit test.

Tests that exceed the normal range, such as anomaly tests and fault-tolerance tests, are mainly considered when the interface repeatedly receives some different data, such as the length of the data packet changes according to a specific rule, and the value of the data field changes repeatedly.

2. Through the normal external use interface - graphical or command line interface operation, the frequency of command issuance is limited, resulting in a small test data flow and unable to test the performance of communication.

As an external interface, the system command interface can bear greater traffic, so the performance test of this interface cannot be realized only through simple command operations.

3. Under the condition of limited test data flow, the significance of testing long-term stability is also greatly reduced.

In the prior art, hardware loopback is a very effective method in the verification and testing of data forwarding functions. Various types of loopback operations are performed at the nodes of the data forwarding path, and one data source can be used to verify the data flow in both directions. For example, when there is a bottleneck on the path, loopback at an appropriate place can measure the forwarding performance of the path before the bottleneck; loopback can also play an important role when the test equipment is not complete, and in the verification of test results and the positioning of test problems. Now all business chips basically support hardware loopback.

The loopback function of the hardware only changes the data flow direction of the physical layer, so after the loopback, the content of the data flow remains intact. In the case of narrowband services, since the data flow runs on a fixed physical path, the loopback can return directly on the same path, or be more flexible, switch to another path and send it back, and the data flow can still reach the destination normally. .

But the hardware loopback has the following problems:

In the broadband service of the widely used IP network at present, all data forwarding is based on the destination MAC address information in the message to determine the destination. The forwarding process is mainly divided into two steps. When each message enters a forwarding chip, the source MAC address information indicating the source of the message and the port number that the message enters are used as a corresponding information and recorded in the address table; When a message needs to find an outgoing port, use the destination MAC address in the message to query the existing address records, and find the port number corresponding to the destination MAC address of the message, which is the physical location of the destination. is sent from this port. At this time, the physical medium of all data streams is completely shared. When the data stream remains unchanged and only the direction is reversed, when the message is forwarded through the same forwarding chip, the source MAC address of the message will have a corresponding input port, causing the source address to learn repeatedly on the two ports and refresh the address table repeatedly; if the destination address of the message is already in the address table, the destination address of the message after the loopback is found to be the same as the inbound port, which is an error In this case, the packet should be discarded and cannot be returned to the ingress port where the packet started. If there is a problem in the implementation of the chip hardware, it may also cause more serious errors.

In addition, in the early debugging of equipment, or during testing and use, the debugging and positioning of business functions often depend on the hardware environment and the debugging functions supported by the hardware, and the imperfections in these aspects make debugging and positioning difficult. How to reduce the dependence of business testing on the hardware environment has also become a subject of software testability realization.

In the prior art, in the testing and debugging of data processing functions implemented by software, the usual data flow is to interact between one equipment unit and another equipment unit, and the equipment unit can be different single boards or two different devices. When a data stream is generated at one end, white-box tracking or black-box testing can be performed on the data processing flow at the other end. However, this test has the following disadvantages:

1. The premise of this test must be to have multiple required equipment units at the same time. When the environment is not available, testers cannot test.

2. If the developer conducts the test by himself, he will generally write a data-driven module for temporary use (the module is deleted in the code handed over to the full-time tester) to generate the various data streams required, and the required code Larger volume and workload.

Contents of the invention

The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is: to overcome the shortcomings of the existing communication equipment, such as limited test data flow, affected forwarding after loopback, high dependence on the hardware environment, and heavy test code writing workload, etc., to provide a communication The device and its testing method can carry out effective testing, and make the forwarding unaffected after the loopback, reduce the dependence on the hardware environment, and reduce the workload of writing test codes.

The technical scheme that the present invention adopts for solving the problems of the technologies described above is:

The testing method of this communication equipment comprises the following steps:

performing software loopback processing on device communication data or service data by the loopback processing module in the communication device;

The loopback processing is an upward loopback or a downward loopback, wherein, when the upward loopback is a software loopback from the upper layer to the lower layer, the loopback processing module sends the upper layer software to the lower layer software The data is sent back to the upper-layer software; or, when looping back from the upper-layer software to the hardware, the loopback processing module sends the data sent to the hardware by the upper-layer software to the upper-layer software;

When the downward loopback is the software loopback from the hardware to the upper layer, the loopback processing module intercepts the data sent from the hardware to the upper layer software, and sends the intercepted data back to the hardware , or, the loopback processing module intercepts the data sent from the lower layer software to the upper layer software, and sends the intercepted data back to the lower layer software.

Wherein, according to different divisions of software processing protocol layers, the loopback processing module is implemented on different software layers, or according to test requirements, further changes processing of data characteristics during loopback.

Wherein, during the upward loopback, the data sent by the upper layer software module of the device is identified in the loopback processing module according to the data characteristics, and then looped back, after the upper layer software module receives the data again, it is tested .

Wherein, during the upward loopback, the loopback processing module performs software loopback by increasing the flow of data sent by the upper layer to test the data processing performance between relevant software layers.

Wherein, when the looping down, the following steps are included:

T1. The loopback processing module receives a message, and the message comes from a test instrument, test software or a peer device;

T2. The loopback processing module performs conversion processing on the information items related to forwarding addressing in the message according to the needs;

T3. The loopback processing module returns the message processed in step T2 to the hardware, and the hardware forwards it.

Wherein, the message received by the loopback processing module is constructed and sent by the test instrument or test software; and the received loopback message is analyzed and tested on the test instrument or test software.

Among them, by increasing the message flow, the performance limit of communication processing is measured; by changing the length of the message, the index of the message length of communication processing is measured; by continuously changing the characteristics of the message data, the stability test is carried out.

Wherein, the sending source of the loopback is the upper or lower layer module of the software performing the loopback, or a test instrument or a peer device.

Wherein, the software loopback is configured by setting the test operation interface of the software loopback.

Corresponding to a communication device, a loopback processing module is set in the communication device, and the loopback processing module performs loopback processing on the communication data or business data of the device, and returns the data that the upper layer software will send to the lower layer software to the upper layer or the data sent by the upper-layer software to the hardware is sent back to the upper-layer software; or the loopback processing module intercepts the data sent from the hardware to the upper-layer software, and sends the intercepted data back to the The hardware; or the loopback processing module intercepts the data sent from the lower layer software to the upper layer software, and returns the intercepted data to the lower layer software.

The beneficial effects of the present invention are as follows: the present invention provides a flexible test method for the communication function of the device, which can test performance, stability and other complex items; provides a communication device and its test method, adopts the software loopback method, and makes the loopback The forwarding is not affected; when testing and debugging the data processing function implemented by the software, it does not depend on the hardware environment, and reduces the workload of writing test codes. details as follows:

1. Through the test instrument/software sending and receiving package, the equipment software can be self-looped at different software levels, providing a flexible and effective method for testing software data processing functions such as equipment communication, which can measure the software processing performance and enable long-term, Stability testing is more in-depth.

2. Since the software self-loop can modify the data, there is no problem of data forwarding during the hardware self-loop, and an effective loopback method is added to make up for the lack of hardware loopback.

3. Local loopback is performed for the data processing function implemented by the software. When testing and debugging, it does not need to rely on the hardware environment; as long as data identification and loopback processing are performed on the appropriate link that needs loopback, or some data processing is added as needed , it is not necessary to write a complete driver module for sending various messages, which reduces the workload of writing test codes.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of the testing principle of the communication equipment of the present invention.

Detailed ways

Below according to accompanying drawing and embodiment the present invention will be described in further detail:

The core of the present invention is to realize software loopback, and the loopback implemented by software can be divided into two types according to the loopback direction: upward loopback and downward loopback. Upward loopback is to return the data that the software wants to send to the lower layer or hardware to the upper layer software; Downward loopback is to intercept the data sent by the hardware or lower layer software to the upper layer software, and send it back to the lower layer software or hardware.

1. Software loopback

In many data processing functions implemented by software, the two ends that need to interact are equal in the status of data processing. At this time, the data sent by the device itself can be identified in the lower layer module of the software according to the data characteristics of the specific situation, and then looped back.

As shown in Figure 1, a loopback processing module S is set in the communication device, and the loopback processing module S performs loopback processing on the device communication data or business data, as shown in the data flow direction A in Figure 1, during the loopback, it may There are also some fields indicating the device location and other information on the sending and receiving ends of the data that must be modified to correct values, while most of the data content does not need to be changed. When the upper-layer software module receives the data again, it thinks it is the data sent by the external device, and the tester can perform single-step tracking or black-box functional testing. The triggering of data, according to the difference of specific data, can be generated through an external interface (if there is a command interface, it can be generated by command), or a message automatically triggered by software, etc.

If various changes are made to the content of the data at the loopback point, such as modifying the field value to a boundary value or a wrong value, more complex tests such as traversal tests and fault tolerance tests that are difficult to do with ordinary data can be performed. If the flow of data sent by the upper layer is large enough, the software loopback is performed on the lower layer to test the data processing performance between the relevant software layers.

Loopback can test the normal function of data processing, error handling, etc. without hardware. This test method is applicable to both the business function of software processing and the test of equipment communication function.

The choice of single-step tracking or black-box testing depends on the test needs of the specific test object and whether it is implemented, which is no different from ordinary single-step tracking or black-box testing. You can use the debugging version or debugging tools to perform single-step tracking. If there are some statistics or query interfaces for data processing, or if you want to see the overall performance of the system under specific data, you can perform black-box testing during software operation.

2. Software loopback

As shown in the data flow direction B in Figure 1, the entire solution of this embodiment includes the following steps:

1) First, send the test data to the loopback processing module S; you can use the capture method to capture specific messages on the chip, capture the messages that are normally forwarded by the hardware through the chip, and send them to the loopback processing Module S processing;

Sometimes the interface of the software on the hardware may be the same as other hardware interfaces on the chip, and the data can be sent according to the normal forwarding rules, and the capture method does not have to be used.

2) After the software identifies the characteristic message for testing, in order to make the forwarding normal after the loopback, the source and destination address information in the message is exchanged as required;

Only when necessary, the loopback processing module S converts information items related to forwarding addressing such as addresses, so that no error occurs in forwarding pathfinding after loopback. But it is not absolute. It is necessary to improve the hardware loopback scheme. If the hardware does not cause confusion due to address information, and the software does not care about the address content, then this conversion process is not necessary.

Messages of different protocols may not necessarily have source and destination addresses, so processing address information does not necessarily mean exchanging source and destination addresses.

3) Then the loopback processing module S sends the message back to the hardware, and the hardware forwards it. For example, the hardware addresses according to the new address information, and forwards the message to the original message entry, so that the data is forwarded back.

On most chips that support the packet capture function, specific capture conditions need to be configured. How to set this condition depends on the support of the specific chip and the characteristics of the packet itself. For example, many switching chips support specific protocol values or even custom Capture the flow classification characteristics of characteristic fields (such as source MAC, destination MAC, source IP, destination IP, vlan value, transport layer protocol number, application layer protocol number), and can be based on the characteristics of actual data The source MAC and the destination MAC capture an entry of the chip and send it to the software configuration. After the configuration is completed, the message is sent, and the chip will automatically capture the message according to the configuration.

The function of the software can be tested by using the loopback method, and the message is constructed by the test instrument or test software such as SmartBits; after the loopback processing module S receives and recognizes the test message, it changes some necessary addresses and other information, so that The message can be forwarded back, but the content of the data may not be processed in detail; the received loopback message is monitored and counted on the test instrument or software.

At this time, increase the message flow, and if there is no bottleneck on the physical path, the performance limit of communication processing can be measured. For example, the rate index of the uplink port of existing broadband equipment is usually large enough to avoid causing damage to the equipment. bottleneck in communication performance. By changing the length of the constructed message, an indicator of the length of the message processed by the communication can be measured. By continuously changing the data characteristics such as the content or length of the message field, and even maintaining the maximum flow at the same time, more abundant and sufficient stability tests can be performed.

According to different divisions of protocol layers processed by software, such as link layer, transport layer, and application layer, the loopback processing module S can be implemented on different software layers, and according to the needs of actual test purposes, the data characteristics can be analyzed during loopback. Make some changes, such as field content, length, etc.

When testing device communication functions, the higher the level of loopback, the more realistic the data state can be simulated. For example, after the loopback processing module S receives the communication message, it can encapsulate and analyze the message, and loop back the final data content. At this time, the following software processing layer will send the message as its own package for complete Packaging and other processing. When used in communication performance testing, the measured data is closer to the real situation of actual software operation.

The present invention requires a device, software or testing instrument to manufacture data, and receive and analyze the looped data; the source of the packet is the device under test itself when looping up, and another device or another device when looping down. Various conditions such as testing software or testing equipment; during loopback, if necessary, the software needs to modify information items related to forwarding identification such as addresses, so that there will be no error in forwarding pathfinding after loopback.

The components of a test program using the software self-loop approach are:

1. A packet sending source sends a message, which can be the loopback software itself, or a test instrument, software or peer device;

2. The chip realizes the function of capturing test messages and sending them to the software; for the upward loopback in the software loopback, hardware capture is not required.

3. The loopback processing module S can perform some necessary data processing such as address conversion;

4. The loopback processing module S can perform upward loopback or downward loopback, and can be at different software levels;

5. The receiving end checks and records the test results;

6. In order to use the software loopback function flexibly, a test operation interface for configuring software loopback can be provided, which can be a command line or a network management system. For example, configure whether the software loopback is enabled, the software level of the software loopback implementation, the data that needs to be looped back, and other additional settings such as loopback data processing. All settings can be canceled, and the implementation of the interface can be complicated or simplified according to needs.

As shown in Figure 1, the present invention provides a communication device at the same time. A loopback processing module S is set in the communication device. The loopback processing module S performs loopback processing on the communication data or business data of the device, and sends the upper layer software to the lower layer or The data sent by the hardware is sent back to the upper-layer software; or the data sent by the hardware or the lower-layer software to the upper-layer software is intercepted midway and sent back to the lower-layer software or hardware.

The present invention provides a flexible test method for the communication function of the device, which can test performance, stability and other complex items; provides a communication device and its test method, adopts a software loopback method, so that the forwarding after the loopback is not affected; the software When testing and debugging the implemented data processing function, it does not depend on the hardware environment, and reduces the workload of writing test codes.

Those skilled in the art do not depart from the essence and spirit of the present invention, there can be many variants to realize the present invention, the above description is only a preferred and feasible embodiment of the present invention, and it does not limit the scope of rights of the present invention. The equivalent changes made in the description of the invention and the content of the accompanying drawings are all included in the scope of rights of the present invention.

Claims (9)

1. the method for testing of a communication equipment is characterized in that, may further comprise the steps:

By the loop back processing being module in the communication equipment devices communicating data or business datum are carried out the software loop back processing being;

Described loop back processing being is upwards loopback or loopback downwards, and wherein, when described upwards loopback was a software loopback from the upper strata to the lower floor, the data loopback that described loop back processing being module will send the software on upper strata to the software of lower floor was to the software on upper strata; Perhaps, from the software on upper strata during to Hardware loopback, the data loopback that described loop back processing being module will send the software on upper strata to described hardware is to the software on upper strata;

When described downward loopback is a software loopback from hardware to the upper strata, the data that described loop back processing being module interception is given the software on upper strata from hardware, and the described data that are blocked are sent back to described hardware; Perhaps, during the software loopback of described loop back processing being module from the lower floor to the upper strata, the data that interception is given the software on upper strata from the software of lower floor, and the described data that are blocked are sent back to the software of lower floor.

2. the method for testing of communication equipment according to claim 1, it is characterized in that: according to the division difference of the protocol hierarchy of software processes, described loop back processing being module realizes on different software levels, or according to the test needs, further when loopback the data feature is carried out change process.

3. the method for testing of communication equipment according to claim 2, it is characterized in that: during described upwards loopback, the data that equipment upper layer software (applications) module is sent, in described loop back processing being module, discern according to data characteristics, loopback goes back then, after described upper layer software (applications) module receives data again, test.

4. the method for testing of communication equipment according to claim 2 is characterized in that: during described upwards loopback, by strengthening the flow that upper layer data sends, carry out the software loopback by described loop back processing being module, the data processing performance between the test related software layer.

5. the method for testing of communication equipment according to claim 2 is characterized in that: during described downward loopback, may further comprise the steps:

T1, described loop back processing being module receive message, and described message is from tester, testing software or opposite equip.;

T2, described loop back processing being module are carried out conversion process to the forwarding addressing related information items in the described message as required;

T3, described loop back processing being module are sent back to hardware with described message, and hardware is transmitted.

6. the method for testing of communication equipment according to claim 5, it is characterized in that, described T3 step specifically comprises: after described loop back processing being module is received described message and identification, send back to hardware, hardware is transmitted, in tester or the testing software to the loopback that receives after message carry out analytical test.

7. the method for testing of communication equipment according to claim 6 is characterized in that: by increasing message flow, record the performance boundary of communication process; By changing the length of message, record the index of the message length of communication process; By continuous variation message data feature, carry out stability test.

8. according to the method for testing of each described communication equipment in the claim 1 to 7, it is characterized in that:, the software loopback is configured by the test operation interface of software loopback is set.

9. communication equipment, it is characterized in that, the loop back processing being module is set in communication equipment, and described loop back processing being module is carried out loop back processing being to devices communicating data or business datum, and the data loopback that the software on upper strata will be sent to the software block of lower floor is to the software on upper strata; Perhaps, the data loopback that the software on upper strata will be sent to hardware is to the software on upper strata; Perhaps described loop back processing being module is tackled the data of giving the software on described upper strata from described hardware, and the data of described interception are sent back to described hardware; Perhaps described loop back processing being module is tackled the data of giving the software on upper strata from the software of described lower floor, and the data of described interception is sent back to the software of described lower floor.

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