| 摘要 |
It is desired to test network management applications, for example, to show that they will work with large or very large networks, to determine the upper bounds of the applications capabilities, and to determine improvements which might, for example, increase the upper bounds. A method of testing a network application is disclosed providing a mapping of the layer-3 addresses of a real subnetwork onto a plurality of mapped layer-3 subnetwork addresses for conversations with the application or device. A packet is modified to change a destination layer-3 address in a mapped subnetwork, to point to the corresponding real IP address and the packet is forwarded on. The conversation to which a response from a reallayer-3 address relates is identified. The source layer-3 address and packet contents are changed into the appropriate mapped subnetwork and the packet is forwarded to the application or device. In operation, an existing test network of any size may be used as the basis for testing the network management application. In an embodiment, a small driver, the "IP address mapping shim" (simply referred to as the shim hereafter), working within the network stack of the server running the network management application, maps one or more (usually private) IP subnets onto the real IP subnet of the test network. The former IP subnets are hereafter referred to as mapped subnets, while the latter subnet is hereafter referred to as the real subnet.
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