Introduction

Ostinato is an open-source, cross-platform network packet crafter/traffic generator and analyzer with a friendly GUI. Craft and send packets of several streams with different protocols at different rates. For the full feature list see below.

Ostinato aims to be "Wireshark in Reverse" and become complementary to Wireshark.

Here's a screencast showing basic usage -

Features

Runs on Windows, Linux, BSD and Mac OS X (Will probably run on other platforms also with little or no modification but this hasn't been tested)
Open, edit, replay and save PCAP files
Support for the most common standard protocols

Ethernet/802.3/LLC SNAP
VLAN (with QinQ)
ARP, IPv4, IPv6, IP-in-IP a.k.a IP Tunnelling (6over4, 4over6, 4over4, 6over6)
TCP, UDP, ICMPv4, ICMPv6, IGMP, MLD
Any text based protocol (HTTP, SIP, RTSP, NNTP etc.)
More protocols in the works ...

Modify any field of any protocol (some protocols allow changing packet fields with every packet at run time e.g. changing IP/MAC addresses)
User provided Hex Dump - specify some or all bytes in a packet
User defined script to substitute for an unimplemented protocol (EXPERIMENTAL)
Stack protocols in any arbitrary order
Create and configure multiple streams
Configure stream rates, bursts, no. of packets
Single client can control and configure multiple ports on multiple computers generating traffic
Exclusive control of a port to prevent the OS from sending stray packets provides a controlled testing environment
Statistics Window shows realtime port receive/transmit statistics and rates
Capture packets and view them (needs Wireshark to view the captured packets)
Framework to add new protocol builders easily

Some screenshots (click to view larger image) -


Main Window	Stream Configuration - Protocol Selection (Simple Mode)	Stream Configuration - Protocol Data
	More Screenshots ...
Stream Configuration - Packet View

Testimonials

...thanks for developing ostinato: this was a really missing piece in the open-source networking world - Luca Deri (ntop.org) Email

Napatech supports a number of open-source software applications that can also help customers accelerate their development ... Ostinato for Traffic Generation Article

Ostinato is more stable [than similar tools] and has a more complete roadmap Blog

If your [sic] looking for GUI based packet generator then Ostinato is one of the best option Blog

First - great program - and I'm so happy to see that it's actively being developed Email

Many thanks for developing this great software and giving good support Email

News

November 2011

Mac OSX Universal binaries available for Ostinato 0.5

October 2011

0.5 released ChangeLog

May 2011

0.4.1 released ChangeLog

April 2011

Ostinato binary package available for xUbuntu 11.04
NextComputing launches Continuum - a cost-effective, portable 1/20/40GbE traffic generator based on Ostinato Press Release
Ostinato 0.4 released ChangeLog

Older News

Follow Ostinato News on Twitter

Documentation

A Quickstart for the impatient
User Guide
Writing a script to fill-in for an unimplemented protocol
Developers: read Writing a Protocol Builder

For more, see the full list of documents in the wiki.

Slides from the FOSS.IN 2010 Conference -

Getting Ostinato

Source and binary packages are available for several platforms/distros. See Downloads

Mailing List

For queries/bugs/feedback/suggestions, send an email to the mailing list - ostinato@googlegroups.com

You can also join the mailing list or read the archives.

Contributing to Ostinato

Clone the mercurial repository and hack away! (don't forget to send a merge request when you are done)
Build instructions are available here
Documentation to add support for a protocol is available here

If you can offer/maintain binary packages (any platform) - please send an email to ostinato at googlegroups dot com