Patent ID: 8233399

Claim:
A computing device to generate packets, comprising: a memory divided into a kernel space and a user space; a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor executes an application program operative in the user space and a generic packet generator operative in the kernel space, the application program causes the computing device to generate a first stream definition including a first background data template, a first packet frequency, and one or more first user defined fields, and the generic packet generator causes the computing device to generate a first plurality of transmission-ready packets, wherein each packet of the first plurality of transmission-ready packets comprises the first background data template overlaid by the one or more first user defined fields and each packet includes all fields necessary to transmit the packet over the network; a hardware timer coupled to the processor, the hardware timer generating a first series of interrupts at intervals defined by the first packet frequency; and a physical unit coupled to the processor and to a network, wherein the computing device provides the first plurality of transmission-ready packets to the physical unit for transmission over the network in response to the first series of interrupts from the hardware timer.