mausezahn is a fast traffic generator which allows you to send
nearly every possible and impossible packet. In contrast to
trafgen(8), mausezahn's packet configuration is on a protocol-
level instead of byte-level and mausezahn also comes with a
built-in Cisco-like command-line interface, making it suitable as
a network traffic generator box in your network lab.
Next to network labs, it can also be used as a didactical tool
and for security audits including penetration and DoS testing. As
a traffic generator, mausezahn is also able to test IP multicast
or VoIP networks. Packet rates close to the physical limit are
reachable, depending on the hardware platform.
mausezahn supports two modes, ''direct mode'' and a multi-
threaded ''interactive mode''.
The ''direct mode'' allows you to create a packet directly on the
command line and every packet parameter is specified in the
argument list when calling mausezahn.
The ''interactive mode'' is an advanced multi-threaded
configuration mode with its own command line interface (CLI).
This mode allows you to create an arbitrary number of packet
types and streams in parallel, each with different parameters.
The interactive mode utilizes a completely redesigned and more
flexible protocol framework called ''mops'' (mausezahn's own
packet system). The look and feel of the CLI is very close to the
Cisco IOS^tm command line interface.
You can start the interactive mode by executing mausezahn with
the ''-x'' argument (an optional port number may follow,
otherwise it is 25542). Then use telnet(1) to connect to this
mausezahn instance. If not otherwise specified, the default login
and password combination is mz:mz and the enable password is:
mops. This can be changed in /etc/netsniff-ng/mausezahn.conf.
The direct mode supports two specification schemes: The ''raw-
layer-2'' scheme, where every single byte to be sent can be
specified, and ''higher-layer'' scheme, where packet builder
interfaces are used (using the ''-t'' option).
To use the ''raw-layer-2'' scheme, simply specify the desired
frame as a hexadecimal sequence (the ''hex-string''), such as:
mausezahn eth0 "00:ab:cd:ef:00 00:00:00:00:00:01 08:00
ca:fe:ba:be"
In this example, whitespaces within the byte string are optional
and separate the Ethernet fields (destination and source address,
type field, and a short payload). The only additional options
supported are ''-a'', ''-b'', ''-c'', and ''-p''. The frame
length must be greater than or equal to 15 bytes.
The ''higher-layer'' scheme is enabled using the ''-t <packet-
type>'' option. This option activates a packet builder, and
besides the ''packet-type'', an optional ''arg-string'' can be
specified. The ''arg-string'' contains packet- specific
parameters, such as TCP flags, port numbers, etc. (see example
section).
