IPFire has released fireperf, an open-source network benchmarking tool specifically designed to test firewalls and routers, which operates with significantly lower CPU usage than iperf3. Unlike traditional tools that measure raw throughput, fireperf focuses on the ability of firewalls to handle large numbers of simultaneous connections and to maintain those connections without dropping packets, addressing common issues such as SSH freezes. The tool categorizes connection failures and tracks performance metrics, providing sysadmins with insights into stateful devices' limits. Fireperf is available for various Linux distributions and can operate alongside iperf3, making it a valuable addition for evaluating the performance of firewalls and routers under realistic conditions

IPFire Releases fireperf: Open-Source Firewall Benchmark That Beats iperf3 on CPU

IPFire has published fireperf, a free GPLv3+ network benchmarking tool designed to test firewalls and routers rather than plain cables. It opens hundreds of thousands of connections per second, categorizes each failure, and tracks silent dropouts that cause the classic "SSH freezes after lunch" problem. On CPU efficiency it burns about a seventh of the cycles iperf3 demands by default, and it stays compatible with existing iperf3 and iperf v2 clients. Install it from Debian, Arch, RHEL 9 and 10, or openSUSE Tumbleweed, or build from source at ipfire.org/fireperf.

IPFire Releases fireperf: Open-Source Firewall Benchmark That Beats iperf3 on CPU @ Linux Compatible