> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://wireblast.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Wireblast
> A fast, easy-to-use AF_XDP traffic generator for Linux. The iPerf of packet generators.
Wireblast puts real Ethernet frames on a real NIC, as fast as the hardware will take them, and tells you exactly what it sent.
It's a single static Go binary. Run `sudo wireblast` with no arguments and a wizard walks you through picking an interface, a traffic pattern and a rate. Thirty seconds later you have numbers.
On a 100G Mellanox link it fills the pipe at every frame size, including **138 million packets a second** of the smallest frames, from one process. The [performance page](/concepts/performance) has the measured numbers.
## The gap it fills
You know this moment. `iperf` isn't cutting it any more. You need 64-byte frames, or ten thousand distinct flows, or a capture replayed back onto the wire. But you're nowhere near justifying a dedicated traffic-generation appliance, and you'd rather not spend a week learning DPDK.
That's the gap. Wireblast lives in it.
TCP and UDP throughput between two hosts. Easy, but it can't shape frames, flows or rates the way a network test needs.
Line-rate frames you fully control, from a Linux box you already have. No cgo, no DPDK, no kernel modules.
Hardware timestamping, RFC 2544, latency histograms, certification-grade reporting. Also a purchase order.
## What it looks like
A live run, not a mockup:
```text theme={null}
Wireblast running elapsed 0:10 / -0:10
interface wb0 virtual · 1 queue(s) · native XDP · copy
pattern udp fixed 512-byte frames
rx filter udp/9000
rate set 200kpps actual 199.67 kpps
╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮ ╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ TX │ │ RX │
│ ── │ │ ── │
│ Packets/sec 199.67 kpps │ │ Packets/sec 150 kpps │
│ Bits/sec L1 849.79 Mbit/s │ │ Bits/sec L1 638.4 Mbit/s │
│ Bits/sec L2 817.84 Mbit/s │ │ Bits/sec L2 614.4 Mbit/s │
│ ──────────────────────────────────────────────── │ │ ──────────────────────────────────────────────── │
│ Packets 1.9 M │ │ Packets 1.43 M │
│ Bytes 971.28 MB │ │ Bytes 729.72 MB │
│ Avg frame 512 B │ │ Avg frame 512 B │
│ UDP 1.9 M │ │ UDP 1.43 M │
│ TCP 0 │ │ TCP 0 │
│ Other 0 │ │ Other 0 │
│ Errors 0 │ │ Drops/errors 0 │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ ╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
packets/sec · last 8s peak 199.73 kpps
TX ▇▇▇▇▇▇█▇ 199.67 kpps
RX ▆▆▆▆▆▆▆▆ 150 kpps
space pause · +/- rate ±10% · g graph: bits · r reset counters · ? help · q stop and quit
```
Everything on that screen is also a command-line flag, so anything you work out in the wizard can be pasted into a script.
## Start here
One binary, a couple of requirements, and the memlock setting that trips up first runs.
Traffic on the wire in about a minute. No spare NIC needed.
Copy-paste recipes: benchmark a link, run IMIX, replay a capture, stress a firewall.
Short answers to the things people ask first.
## What it does
UDP, stateless TCP SYN, IMIX, raw Ethernet, and PCAP replay.
The same config always produces the same tuples, in the same order, whatever the queue count.
Fills a 100G link at every frame size, measured on real Mellanox hardware.
L1 and L2 bit rates, clearly labelled, plus why your monitoring tool reads slightly lower.
Transmit-only by default. Nothing is taken away from the kernel unless you ask for it.
## When not to use it
Worth knowing before you invest an afternoon.
* **You need latency numbers.** Wireblast counts packets and bytes. It doesn't measure latency or jitter, and it has no hardware timestamping.
* **You need certification-grade results.** There's no RFC 2544 or RFC 3918 test suite, and no signed report at the end.
* **You need stateful TCP.** The TCP pattern is stateless SYNs. No handshake, no connection state, no retransmission.
* **You're not on Linux.** AF\_XDP is a Linux kernel facility, so there's no macOS or Windows build and there won't be.
## Built on go-afxdp
Wireblast is the friendly front end. The AF\_XDP machinery underneath, meaning UMEM management, the four rings, XDP program loading and the zero-copy paths, lives in [go-afxdp](https://github.com/atoonk/go-afxdp), a standalone Go library you can build your own tools on.
If you want the packet generator, use Wireblast. If you want to write something else that moves packets at line rate from Go, start with the library.