Seagull / News: Recent posts

- New functionality:
NEW: Extend remote control
NEW: Add log user level
NEW: Modify seagull behavior on pause
NEW: Extend correlation feature with open id
NEW: Extend IncVarAction action
NEW: Add verdict level
NEW: Seagull return codes upon exit

- Bugs fixed:
FIX: Core dump due to a memory overflow
FIX: Fix error in Poisson distribution library
FIX: Remove restriction: default scenario must have two commands
FIX: Memory overflow for L_Path
FIX: Memory Leak
FIX: Coredump in configuration parameters
FIX: Compile warning in hpux
FIX: Memory leak in Multi-channel mode... read more

- New functionality:
NEW: Seagull multi-channel and correlation features
(it allows to associate several session-ids for a single call, whether the scenario uses one or several channels)
NEW: Seagull authentication with external method for binary and text protocols, available for linux only
(this allows to support the Radius Authenticator field)
NEW: Extend counter feature : possibility to define min and max values
NEW: Extend setfield feature in binary protocol: accept all types of field in dictionary except grouped type
NEW: Update for sctp support (SCTPlib 1.5.0 SCTPsocketapi 1.9.0), which is available for linux only
NEW: Ignore SIGPIPE signal
(this is a robustness improvement to avoid closing the application when a socket is closed)
NEW: Open-id feature is now available for binary prorocol... read more

Seagull is a multi-protocol traffic generator. Especially targeted towards IMS, Seagull supports Diameter (RFC3588 and all applications) over TCP/SCTP and IPv4/IPv6 , TCAP (over SS7 or Sigtran), XCAP over HTTP and Radius.

Seagull-1.5.0 has been released. Here are the changes since 1.4.1:
NEW: Support of authentication (MD5/Digest and AKA) for text protocols like http, xcap and SIP
NEW: Reconnection in case a LAN failure (option of transport channel)
NEW: configuration parameters for text protocols (see http://gull.sourceforge.net/doc/core.html#config_param\)
NEW: Add two features for Traffic control : pause and resume (http://gull.sourceforge.net/doc/core.html#control_remote)
NEW: Added stop, pause and resume to remote control Perl example
TLV: New protocol family: TLV (Type, Length, Value) - no public execution environment available for this family
OCTCAP: Fix error-tag functions
OCTCAP: Fix u-abort-cause to be set in octcap lib
DIAMETER: Fix for start-length that was not working properly under certain circumstances
FIX: TLS open could fail under certain circumstances
FIX: Log a message if the message is not fully sent in case of TCP segmentation
FIX: Seagull could core dump on check-value action
FIX: Removed ntl library during compilation... read more

I thought I would let you know of what is coming in Seagull before the end of October '06.

* TLS transport: this has been added end of September in the source repository and will be officially released
* SIP support: As a complement to SIPp, Seagull will support also SIP to allow mixed SIP/DIAMETER/XCAP scenarios
* Uniform distribution: some users have noticed that new scenario attempts are not placed evenly within the second (10 scenario per seconds is not one scenario every 10th of the second). The new version provides a uniform distribution of the calls
* Poisson distribution: a contribution from Vincent Planat provides a Poisson distribution for the scenarios. It is aimed at emulating real networks by adding "randomness".
* Evolution on distributions: because of the 2 changes mentioned, distributions are now more opened and more scenario distributions can be easily added
* Actions: As a performance improvement, actions are now derived from a base action object. This allows to create new action very easily - with a limited understanding of Seagull's code
* Programmatic control: Seagull can be remote controlled using a very simple http interface. With a single http request, you can change the scenario rate (immediately or following a ramp), dump Seagull's counters or quit. This allows to create GUIs, Eclipse plugins or Seagull clusters very easily.
* Programmatic scripting: Using the new programmatic control interface, a simple Perl script is provided (as an example) to sequence a series of actions. A script, as parsed by this Perl program (launched with "./ctrl.pl http://192.168.0.2:10055/ scenario.txt") looks like:... read more

New H248 and XCAP protocols were added, support of GT_SSN routing type for TCAP was added, check-value for strings was fixed, error messages were clarified, several other fixes.
The next release will add support for SIP (this will consist in an XML dictionary only-no code), TLS transport and traffic pattern control (ramp, sin, burst).

What's new in 1.3.1: Diameter: Fix bug for message "Buffer max size reached ", Diameter: support of empty grouped AVPs, Diameter: new Diameter-draft-08 dictionary, Core: compilation under HPUX/IA64, Core: Cygwin compil flags

We have been working on it for quite some times, but this is now ready for prime time: Seagull is available!
Seagull is an Open Source multi-protocol traffic generator test tool, sponsored by HP OpenCall Software as well as Atos Origin and the COMET consortium. Primary aimed at IMS protocols (and thus being the perfect complement to SIPp - http://sipp.sourceforge.net/\), Seagull is a powerful traffic generator for functional, load, endurance, stress and performance tests for almost any kind of protocol.... read more

Seagull will be released end of April 2006.