libPacForge: a Library for Automated Packet Generation in C++

Oral Presentation

This paper concerns the automation of arbitrary packet crafting and transmission, in order to test functionality at the transport layer of the internet protocol suite and above. Although libraries such as libpcap exist to make it easy for programmers to carry out network packet analysis, no such library exists specifically to ease the creation of programs that craft and efficiently transmit arbitrary packets (i.e. software testing suites and network protocol prototypes). This paper will detail this author’s creation of such a library, libPacForge, and the results of tests to compare its usability and efficiency against a manually crafted packet generator in C, as well as against a program created using the Metasploit Framework. These tests measured efficiency by comparing transmission rate of rapidly changing packets, and measured usability by analyzing the time necessary to write a functional program. In the course of carrying out these tests, a marked increase was observed in terms of both efficinecy and usability. From this we can deduce that automation can reduce the time needed to write effective tests and prototypes.