[pscheduler] Adding multicast features

[matthieu-ca]

Hi, I'm testing Perfsonar in my company, and it appears to be quite adapted to what we want to do (test the connectivity between different areas of our network). My goal is to run tests between multiple perfsonar server, all directed by the orchestrator (pSConfig) and display the result in our Grafana.

The thing is, Multicast traffic is critical for us, so the solution must support it for the project to proceed.
Right now I know that perfsonar isn't designed for that, so I'm currently looking to implement a new plugin tests that will enable multicast.

But I'm stuck. I don't find that much documentation about how to add a plugin.
If anyone can give me some advices or best practices to do it, I will be glad.

Otherwise, we plan to use python script and iperf2, but I really want to do this with Perfsonar

[epcjr]

Here is the pScheduler Plugin Development Kit (PDK): https://github.com/perfsonar/pscheduler/tree/master/scripts/PDK It is a good jumping off point to get started with integrating third party software with pScheduler. There are more complexities if you want to integrate the development(s) with the main source repository, you can meet with the proper developers if that's the way you'd like to proceed. Good luck, hope this helps with what you need! Thanks,

…

-Ed

On Fri, Oct 31, 2025 at 9:53 AM matthieu-ca ***@***.***> wrote: *matthieu-ca* created an issue (perfsonar/pscheduler#1599) <#1599> Hi, I'm testing Perfsonar in my company, and it appears to be quite adapted to what we want to do (test the connectivity between different areas of our network). My goal is to run tests between multiple perfsonar server, all directed by the orchestrator (pSConfig) and display the result in our Grafana. The thing is, Multicast traffic is critical for us, so the solution must support it for the project to proceed. Right now I know that perfsonar isn't designed for that, so I'm currently looking to implement a new plugin tests that will enable multicast. But I'm stuck. I don't find that much documentation about how to add a plugin. If anyone can give me some advices or best practices to do it, I will be glad. Otherwise, we plan to use python script and iperf2, but I really want to do this with Perfsonar image.png (view on web) <https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/fcbabb31-6403-4fea-9613-f5c1c8ed8232> image.png (view on web) <https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3e0e27e2-5976-4e1a-ba5f-bfc2a439a207> — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1599>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABLYWC2N53RZBEDTFFLH55332NSWXAVCNFSM6AAAAACKY3ZPFKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43ASLTON2WKOZTGU3TKMBVG4ZDSMI> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[matthieu-ca]

Thank you so much!
I've missed this doc, I'm going to take a look and update this post if needed.

[mfeit-internet2]

We'd be happy to work with you on this. There are some philosophical things the docs don't cover.

[matthieu-ca]

After some edits and tests, I didn't manage to correctly build my plugin in pscheduler.
The document present in the PDK section is indeed a bit sketchy… And it's taking a lot of my time lately, so before going further with psConfig to automate our tests, I really want to make this multicast test work out.

Here are all my files before the make cbic command. I don't know if it's the structure that is blocking or an element that is missing.

validate.py
cli-to-spec.txt
enumerate.txt
Makefile.txt
participants.txt
result-format.txt
spec-format.txt
spec-is-valid.txt
spec-to-cli.txt

[matthieu-ca]

I would like to know if anyone can help me in this case?
Otherwise, I think I wouldn't be able to add multicast features in Perfsonar

[mfeit-internet2]

Sorry for the long delay on this. The development team (especially me) gets wrapped up pretty tightly from October through the end of the year.

I'm currently looking to implement a new plugin tests that will enable multicast.

Let me ask some questions about that that will help me point you in the right direction:

What problem are you trying to solve? For example, "we're trying to determine whether there is multicast connectivity from point A on our network to points B, C and D" or "we're trying to measure multicast throughput between those points."

What tool(s) are you currently using to make these measurements?

Does support for any of these tools already exist in perfSONAR and they just need some extra poking to get them to do multicast? Or is this going to be totally-new territory (i.e., new kinds of measurements with new tools)?