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diff --git a/docs/2017-04-27.txt b/docs/2017-04-27.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc8206e --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/2017-04-27.txt @@ -0,0 +1,95 @@ +Subject: iperf3 status, April 2017 + +This is the first of a series of (maybe periodic?) updates about +iperf3 development: + +State of the iperf3 World, as seen from ESnet... +------------------------------------------------ + +iperf3 was originally written to be a "better", more maintainable +follow-on to iperf2. This was seen to be necessary to fill the +requirements for the perfSONAR project (http://www.perfsonar.net). + +In the past few years, iperf2 development has been restarted by Bob +McMahon of Broadcom. He (and other contributors) have fixed a number +of problems with iperf2 and added some new features +(https://sourceforge.net/projects/iperf2/). We're happy to observe +that iperf2 is once again under active development, and we have +started discussing ways in which these two projects could productively +interact. + +We note that iperf3 lacks several features found in iperf2, for +example multicast tests, bidirectional tests, multi-threading, and +official Windows support. Given the active state of iperf2 +development and maintenance, we feel that the needs of users requiring +such functionality are best met by using a recent version of iperf2 +instead of waiting for them to be backported or reimplemented in +iperf3. + +ESnet's main interest in iperf3 is for testing high-performance +Research and Education (R&E) networks, especially as a part of the +perfSONAR toolkit. iperf3 can be useful in other circumstances as +well, but high-speed R&E network performance testing will remain the +primary use case. (Much of iperf2's recent development +has focused on the use of UDP for end-to-end latency testing on a +broad range of platforms, although it too is useful for many other +testing scenarios.) + +iperf3 Support +-------------- + +We're trying to work down the support backlog for iperf3. To that +end, we've been aggressively triaging iperf3 issues in the issue +tracker on GitHub. Over the past several weeks, we've gone from about +180 open issues to less than 75. A number of these issues were user +questions, not bug reports or enhancement requests. We're now +discouraging the use of the iperf3 issue tracker for questions. +Instead we'd like users to either use the mailing list +(iperf-dev@google-groups.com) or to look to various question sites on +the Internet such as Stack Overflow (http://www.stackoverflow.com). + +We're happy to accept enhancement requests, although it should be +noted that ESnet's time commitments to iperf3 are somewhat limited and +we need to prioritize our work to match our own requirements. We have +begun using the "Help Wanted" label in the issue tracker on GitHub to +indicate requests we agree with (or at least don't object to), but +which we don't have the time to work on ourselves. These are good +candidates for someone in the community to work on and submit as a +pull request. + +Pull requests are still encouraged, as long as they're compatible with +ESnet's goals and requirements for iperf3. If you're contemplating a +code change that would have a major, fundamental change on the iperf3 +architecture, we strongly encourage discussion with the iperf3 +maintainers before doing a significant amount of work. + +Some of the above considerations are now documented in GitHub +templates that we've recently installed for new issues, pull requests, +and contribution guidelines. + +To make it easier for new users with common questions, we have created +a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list, which is now available on the +iperf3 Web site, at: + +http://software.es.net/iperf/faq.html + +Future Plans +------------ + +In the near-term, we're planning another iperf3 release that will +include some recently added changes. Because some of the changes are +rather large, we're considering basing this release off the mainline +which would make it the first 3.2 release, rather than try to backport +these changes and make another "bugfix" 3.1 release. No decisions +have been made yet. + +The main changes (already on the master branch) are authentication +(#517), a more fine-grained pacing timer (#460), and some portability +fixes. We'd appreciate any testing and feedback that users in the +community could give on these. + +Thanks for your interest and support of iperf3, + +Bruce Mah +Software Engineering Group +ESnet |