  IoT devices have become an integral part of our lives and the industry. Many
of these devices run real-time systems or are used as part of them. As these
devices receive network packets over IP networks, the network interface informs
the CPU about their arrival using interrupts that might preempt critical
processes. Therefore, the question arises whether network interrupts pose a
threat to the real-timeness of these devices. However, there are few tools to
investigate this issue. We present a playground which enables researchers to
conduct experiments in the context of network interrupt simulation. The
playground comprises different network interface controller implementations,
load generators and timing utilities. It forms a flexible and easy to use
foundation for future network interrupt research. We conduct two verification
experiments and two real world examples. The latter give insight into the
impact of the interrupt handling strategy parameters and the influence of
different load types on the execution time with respect to these parameters.
