# MoonGen: A Scriptable High-Speed Packet Generator

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.3322 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1410.3322/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 13 Oct 2014.

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [FENXI: Deep-learning Traffic Analytics at the Edge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.11738/) (2021)
- [A Comprehensive Survey on Network Traffic Synthesis: From Statistical Models to Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.01976/) (2025)
- [OmniPlan: An Adaptive Framework for Timely and Near-Optimal Network Planning Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.18105/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present MoonGen, a flexible high-speed packet generator. It can saturate 10 GbE links with minimum sized packets using only a single CPU core by running on top of the packet processing framework DPDK. Linear multi-core scaling allows for even higher rates: We have tested MoonGen with up to 178.5 Mpps at 120 Gbit/s. We move the whole packet generation logic into user-controlled Lua scripts to achieve the highest possible flexibility. In addition, we utilize hardware features of Intel NICs that have not been used for packet generators previously. A key feature is the measurement of latency with sub-microsecond precision and accuracy by using hardware timestamping capabilities of modern commodity NICs. We address timing issues with software-based packet generators and apply methods to mitigate them with both hardware support on commodity NICs and with a novel method to control the inter-packet gap in software. Features that were previously only possible with hardware-based solutions are now provided by MoonGen on commodity hardware. MoonGen is available as free software under the MIT license at https://github.com/emmericp/MoonGen