Towards Modeling and Testing of IP Routing Protocols

Routing protocols are typical distributed systems characterized by dynamic, concurrent and distributed behaviors. As the primary function of routing protocols, routing information processing constitutes the main content of routing protocol conformance testing. However, there isn’t a clear model based on which convincing test architecture and test notation can be designed. Also, some important features of routing protocols have not been considered sufficiently in existing test practice. On the other hand, generalized distributed system models, test architectures and test notations usually have limitations when applied directly to specific protocol testing. So it is necessary to study specific cases in order to find a pragmatic and efficient approach. In this paper, an MPFSM (Finite State Machine with Multiple Ports) model is proposed to describe routing information processing of IP routing protocols. Based on this model and other test requirement particularities, a test architecture called PADTACC (Parallel And Distributed Test Architecture with Centralized-Control) is presented and a test notation called RIPTS (Routing Information Processing Test Script) is defined. We implement the whole approach into a software tester – IRIT (IP Routing Information Tester).