SD-WAN Traffic Generator

A realistic enterprise application traffic generator designed for SD-WAN demonstrations and testing. Generates weighted HTTP/HTTPS traffic to 60+ popular SaaS applications with configurable distribution patterns.

Optimized for Palo Alto Prisma SD-WAN and compatible with other major SD-WAN platforms

🎯 Features

60+ Enterprise Applications: Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Zoom, Slack, AWS, Azure, and more
Weighted Traffic Distribution: Control exact traffic percentages per application category
Application-Specific Endpoints: Uses real API endpoints for accurate SD-WAN application identification
Intelligent Backoff: Progressive retry logic (1 min → 3 hours) for unreachable hosts
Real-time Statistics: JSON metrics updated every 50 requests
Systemd Service: Auto-start on boot with automatic restart on failure
Log Rotation: Automatic log management to prevent disk space issues
User-Agent Variety: Rotates between multiple realistic browser and application agents
Multi-Interface Support: Load balance across multiple network interfaces

🔷 Palo Alto Prisma SD-WAN Integration

This tool is specifically tested and optimized for Palo Alto Prisma SD-WAN, supporting:

Application identification through SNI inspection
Traffic steering policy validation
Secure Fabric tunnel testing
Multi-path load distribution verification

📊 Use Cases

SD-WAN Demonstrations

Generate realistic traffic patterns for customer demos
Populate SD-WAN dashboards with meaningful application data
Demonstrate application steering and policy enforcement
Show real-time path selection and quality metrics

Testing & Validation

Validate application identification accuracy
Test QoS and traffic shaping policies
Verify failover and path selection logic
Capacity planning and load testing

Lab Environments

Create realistic traffic for training labs
Simulate enterprise network patterns
Test new configurations safely
Benchmark SD-WAN performance

🚀 Installation

Quick Install (Recommended) ⚡

Perfect for demos and testing. Takes ~2 minutes.

Download and install:

wget https://github.com/jsuzanne/sdwan-traffic-generator/archive/refs/heads/main.zip
unzip main.zip
cd sdwan-traffic-generator-main
chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh

Start the service:

sudo systemctl start sdwan-traffic-gen
sudo systemctl enable sdwan-traffic-gen

Verify:

sudo systemctl status sdwan-traffic-gen
tail -f /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic.log

Press `Ctrl+C` to stop watching logs. Traffic generation starts immediately!

Git Clone Method

For developers who want to contribute or modify the code.

Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/jsuzanne/sdwan-traffic-generator.git
cd sdwan-traffic-generator

Install

chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh

Start

sudo systemctl start sdwan-traffic-gen
sudo systemctl enable sdwan-traffic-gen

System Requirements

Requirement	Details
OS	Ubuntu 20.04+, Debian 11+, RHEL 8+ (systemd-based)
CPU	1 core minimum
RAM	512 MB minimum
Disk	500 MB for logs
Network	Internet access (HTTP/HTTPS ports 80/443)
Dependencies	`curl`, `jq` (auto-installed by script)

Post-Installation

After installation completes, you'll see:

✅ Installation complete!

📋 Next steps:

sudo systemctl start sdwan-traffic-gen
sudo systemctl enable sdwan-traffic-gen
sudo systemctl status sdwan-traffic-gen
tail -f /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic.log

What happens next:

✅ Traffic generation starts within seconds
✅ Service auto-starts on boot
✅ Logs rotate automatically (max 700 MB)
✅ Statistics update every 50 requests

First Verification

Check the service is running

sudo systemctl status sdwan-traffic-gen

Watch live traffic (Ctrl+C to exit)

tail -f /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic.log

View statistics after 1-2 minutes

cat /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/stats.json | jq

Expected output:
{
"timestamp": 1732812100,
"client_id": "client01",
"total_requests": 150,
"requests_by_app": {
"teams": 28,
"outlook": 25,
"google": 20
}
}

Troubleshooting Installation

Service won't start?

sudo journalctl -u sdwan-traffic-gen -n 50 --no-pager

No traffic in logs? Check network interface

ip link show
echo "YOUR_INTERFACE_NAME" | sudo tee /opt/sdwan-traffic-gen/config/interfaces.txt
sudo systemctl restart sdwan-traffic-gen

See full Troubleshooting Guide for more solutions.

📖 Usage

Basic Monitoring

View real-time logs

tail -f /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic.log

View statistics

cat /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/stats.json | jq

Watch statistics live (updates every 5 seconds)

watch -n 5 'cat /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/stats.json 2>/dev/null | jq'

Check service status

sudo systemctl status sdwan-traffic-gen

Count total requests

grep -c SUCCESS /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic.log

Top 10 applications by request count

grep SUCCESS /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic.log |
awk -F'/' '{print $3}' | awk '{print $1}' |
sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -10

Service Management

Start service

sudo systemctl start sdwan-traffic-gen

Stop service

sudo systemctl stop sdwan-traffic-gen

Restart service

sudo systemctl restart sdwan-traffic-gen

Enable auto-start on boot

sudo systemctl enable sdwan-traffic-gen

Disable auto-start

sudo systemctl disable sdwan-traffic-gen

View service logs

sudo journalctl -u sdwan-traffic-gen -f

Customizing Traffic Distribution

Quick Edit

Edit application weights

sudo nano /opt/sdwan-traffic-gen/config/applications.txt

Restart to apply changes

sudo systemctl restart sdwan-traffic-gen

Format

domain|weight|endpoint

Example:

Higher weight = more traffic
teams.microsoft.com|100|/api/mt/emea/beta/users/
outlook.office365.com|95|/
google.com|50|/
slack.com|45|/api/api.test

Understanding Weights

Weights are **relative**, not absolute percentages:

teams.microsoft.com|100|/ # 100/200 = 50% of traffic
google.com|50|/ # 50/200 = 25% of traffic
slack.com|50|/api/api.test # 50/200 = 25% of traffic

See Configuration Guide for detailed examples.

🎛️ Default Traffic Distribution

Category	%	Applications
Microsoft 365	25%	Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, Graph API
Google Workspace	20%	Gmail, Drive, Docs, Meet, Calendar
Communication	15%	Zoom, Slack, Webex, Discord
CRM & Sales	8%	Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics 365
Project Management	7%	Jira, Confluence, Asana, Monday, Trello
Cloud Storage	6%	Dropbox, Box, WeTransfer
DevOps	5%	GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Stack Overflow
Cloud Providers	5%	Azure, AWS, GCP Consoles
Business Intelligence	3%	Tableau, Power BI, Looker
HR & Productivity	2%	Workday, BambooHR, Zenefits
Other	4%	Social Media, Design, Support Tools

📈 Example Output

Traffic Logs

[2025-11-28 17:20:15] [INFO] Starting SD-WAN Traffic Generator - Client: client01
[2025-11-28 17:20:15] [INFO] client01 requesting https://teams.microsoft.com/api/mt/emea/beta/users/ via eth0 (traceid: 1732812015-client01)
[2025-11-28 17:20:16] [INFO] client01 SUCCESS https://teams.microsoft.com/api/mt/emea/beta/users/ - code: 200
[2025-11-28 17:20:17] [INFO] client01 requesting https://drive.google.com/ via eth0 (traceid: 1732812017-client01)
[2025-11-28 17:20:18] [INFO] client01 SUCCESS https://drive.google.com/ - code: 200
[2025-11-28 17:20:19] [INFO] client01 requesting https://slack.com/api/api.test via eth0 (traceid: 1732812019-client01)
[2025-11-28 17:20:20] [INFO] client01 SUCCESS https://slack.com/api/api.test - code: 200

Statistics JSON

{
"timestamp": 1732812100,
"client_id": "client01",
"total_requests": 250,
"requests_by_app": {
"teams": 47,
"outlook": 45,
"google": 38,
"slack": 32,
"zoom": 28,
"salesforce": 15,
"github": 12
},
"errors_by_app": {
"discord": 2
}
}

🔧 Configuration

Network Interfaces

By default, traffic uses eth0. To use different or multiple interfaces:

Edit interfaces file

sudo nano /opt/sdwan-traffic-gen/config/interfaces.txt

Example: Multiple interfaces for load balancing

eth0
eth1
ens192

Traffic will be randomly distributed across all listed interfaces.

Request Rate

Modify the sleep time between requests:

sudo nano /opt/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic-generator.sh

Find and modify:

SLEEP_BETWEEN_REQUESTS=1 # Default: 60 requests/min

Examples:

SLEEP_BETWEEN_REQUESTS=0.5 # 120 requests/min (busier)
SLEEP_BETWEEN_REQUESTS=2 # 30 requests/min (lighter)
SLEEP_BETWEEN_REQUESTS=0.1 # 600 requests/min (heavy load)

User Agents

Customize browser and application signatures:

sudo nano /opt/sdwan-traffic-gen/config/user_agents.txt

Add custom agents, one per line

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) Safari/605.1.15

🎨 Pre-configured Profiles

Profile 1: Microsoft-Heavy Enterprise (40% Microsoft)

Edit applications.txt:

Microsoft 365 - 40%
outlook.office365.com|150|/
teams.microsoft.com|140|/api/mt/emea/beta/users/
onedrive.live.com|120|/
sharepoint.com|110|/

Google Workspace - 15%
drive.google.com|60|/
gmail.com|55|/

Others - 45%
zoom.us|80|/
slack.com|70|/

Profile 2: Cloud-Native Startup (30% Cloud Providers)

Cloud Providers - 30%
portal.azure.com|100|/
console.aws.amazon.com|95|/
console.cloud.google.com|90|/

DevOps - 25%
github.com|85|/
gitlab.com|80|/

Collaboration - 20%
slack.com|75|/
zoom.us|70|/

Profile 3: Remote Work (40% Video Conferencing)

Video - 40%
zoom.us|150|/
teams.microsoft.com|140|/
meet.google.com|130|/
webex.com|120|/

Collaboration - 30%
slack.com|110|/
miro.com|100|/

Others - 30%
drive.google.com|90|/

See Configuration Guide for more examples.

🔍 Monitoring & Statistics

Disk Usage

Check log sizes

du -sh /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/

List log files

ls -lh /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/

Expected size:

traffic.log: 0-100 MB (active log)
traffic.log.1-7.gz: ~100 MB total (compressed archives)
stats.json: < 10 MB

Performance Metrics

Requests per minute

echo "scale=2; $(grep -c SUCCESS /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic.log) /
$(($(date +%s) - $(stat -c %Y /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic.log))) * 60" | bc

Success rate

total=$(grep -c "requesting" /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic.log)
success=$(grep -c "SUCCESS" /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic.log)
echo "scale=2; $success / $total * 100" | bc

Application distribution

grep SUCCESS /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic.log |
awk -F'/' '{print $3}' | awk '{print $1}' |
sort | uniq -c | sort -nr

🐛 Troubleshooting

Service won't start

Check detailed error

sudo journalctl -u sdwan-traffic-gen -n 50 --no-pager

Test manually

sudo /opt/sdwan-traffic-gen/traffic-generator.sh client01

Verify configuration

ls -la /opt/sdwan-traffic-gen/config/

No traffic in logs

Verify service is running

ps aux | grep traffic-generator

Check network connectivity

curl -I https://google.com

Test specific interface

curl --interface eth0 -I https://teams.microsoft.com

Restart service

sudo systemctl restart sdwan-traffic-gen

Applications not identified in SD-WAN

Solution 1: Use application-specific endpoints Instead of generic paths:

teams.microsoft.com|100|/

Use specific API endpoints:

teams.microsoft.com|100|/api/mt/emea/beta/users/

Solution 2: Enable SSL inspection on your SD-WAN device (vendor-specific)

Solution 3: Verify SNI is visible

sudo tcpdump -i eth0 -n port 443 | grep -i "teams.microsoft"

See Troubleshooting Guide for more solutions.

🔄 Updating

Navigate to repository

cd sdwan-traffic-generator

Pull latest changes

git pull origin main

Backup current config

sudo cp /opt/sdwan-traffic-gen/config/applications.txt /tmp/applications.txt.bak

Reinstall

sudo ./install.sh

Restore custom config if needed

sudo cp /tmp/applications.txt.bak /opt/sdwan-traffic-gen/config/applications.txt

Restart

sudo systemctl restart sdwan-traffic-gen

🗑️ Uninstallation

Stop and disable service

sudo systemctl stop sdwan-traffic-gen
sudo systemctl disable sdwan-traffic-gen

Remove files

sudo rm -rf /opt/sdwan-traffic-gen
sudo rm -rf /var/log/sdwan-traffic-gen
sudo rm /etc/systemd/system/sdwan-traffic-gen.service
sudo rm /etc/logrotate.d/sdwan-traffic-gen

Reload systemd

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

📚 Documentation

Installation Guide - Complete setup instructions
Configuration Guide - Detailed configuration options and examples
Troubleshooting Guide - Common issues and solutions
Usage Guide - Daily operations and monitoring

Quick Links

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how you can help:

Report Bugs: Open an issue with detailed reproduction steps
Suggest Features: Describe your use case and proposed solution
Submit Pull Requests:
- Fork the repository
- Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
- Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add AmazingFeature')
- Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
- Open a Pull Request

Development Guidelines

Follow existing code style and structure
Test your changes thoroughly
Update documentation for new features
Add comments for complex logic

🌟 Star History

If you find this project useful, please consider giving it a star! ⭐

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

Inspired by real-world SD-WAN deployment needs
Application list based on 2025 enterprise SaaS usage patterns
Tested with Palo Alto Prisma SD-WAN, Cisco Viptela, and VMware VeloCloud
Thanks to the SD-WAN community for feedback and suggestions

📧 Support & Contact

Issues: https://github.com/jsuzanne/sdwan-traffic-generator/issues
Discussions: https://github.com/jsuzanne/sdwan-traffic-generator/discussions
Author: Julien Suzanne
LinkedIn: Connect on LinkedIn

🎓 Use Cases from the Community

"Essential tool for SD-WAN demos. Saves hours of manual traffic generation!" - Network Engineer

"Perfect for testing application steering policies in our lab." - Solutions Architect

"Makes customer demos look professional with realistic traffic patterns." - Pre-Sales Engineer

Share your use case by opening a discussion!

🚦 Project Status

✅ Stable: Production-ready for demos and testing
🔄 Active Development: Regular updates and improvements
📖 Well Documented: Comprehensive guides and examples
🤝 Community Driven: Open to contributions and feedback

Made with ❤️ for the SD-WAN community

Tested on Ubuntu 22.04/24.04, Debian 11/12

Compatible with all major SD-WAN vendors

⚠️ Disclaimer: This tool generates real HTTP/HTTPS requests to public SaaS platforms. Use responsibly and ensure you have appropriate network policies in place. Not intended for production network load or stress testing of third-party services.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 19 Commits
config		config
docs		docs
logrotate		logrotate
logs		logs
systemd		systemd
web-dashboard		web-dashboard
.gitignore		.gitignore
Dockerfile.traffic-gen		Dockerfile.traffic-gen
README.md		README.md
docker-compose.yml		docker-compose.yml
install.sh		install.sh
traffic-generator.sh		traffic-generator.sh

Folders and files

Latest commit

History

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SD-WAN Traffic Generator

🎯 Features

🔷 Palo Alto Prisma SD-WAN Integration

📊 Use Cases

SD-WAN Demonstrations

Testing & Validation

Lab Environments

🚀 Installation

Quick Install (Recommended) ⚡

Git Clone Method

System Requirements

Post-Installation

First Verification

Troubleshooting Installation

📖 Usage

Basic Monitoring

Service Management

Customizing Traffic Distribution

Quick Edit

Format

Understanding Weights

🎛️ Default Traffic Distribution

📈 Example Output

Traffic Logs

Statistics JSON

🔧 Configuration

Network Interfaces

Request Rate

User Agents

🎨 Pre-configured Profiles

Profile 1: Microsoft-Heavy Enterprise (40% Microsoft)

Profile 2: Cloud-Native Startup (30% Cloud Providers)

Profile 3: Remote Work (40% Video Conferencing)

🔍 Monitoring & Statistics

Disk Usage

Performance Metrics

🐛 Troubleshooting

Service won't start

No traffic in logs

Applications not identified in SD-WAN

🔄 Updating

🗑️ Uninstallation

📚 Documentation

Quick Links

🤝 Contributing

Development Guidelines

🌟 Star History

📝 License

🙏 Acknowledgments

📧 Support & Contact

🎓 Use Cases from the Community

🚦 Project Status

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