On Techniques Of Test Suite Planning And Test Case Specification For SNMP Implementations In Routers

The technical background of this dissertation is router testing, which involves test methods, test definition/specification techniques and process, and test systems. The dissertation focused on techniques of test suite planning as well as test specification with an emphasis on the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and a standard specification language called TTCN-3. The author's work is part of the research and development activities at Sichuan Network Communication Technology Key Laboratory (SC-Netcom Lab) to promote a new test method and test definition language and to develop a new generation of test systems for multi-port high-speed routers.In Chapter 1, a comprehensive discussion on router testing techniques is given tore-examine shortcomings of existing testing techniques. A framework for multi-portrouter testing at SC-Netcom Lab is presented, which involves the Multi-port RouterDistributed Synchronized Test Method (MRDS-TM), Concurrent Multi-Port TestDistributed Synchronized Test Method (MRDS-TM), Concurrent Multi-Port Test Definition language (CMP-TDL), and a multi-port router test system.In Chapter 2 first presents a comprehensive study on the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) in Internet together with a generic discussion on SNMP testing. An emphasis has been given, in this dissertation, to testing of implementations of version 2 of SNMP (SNMPv2) in a two-port testing environment although the technique in a multi-port testing environment was also briefly analyzed.Chapters 3 and 4 are the main parts of this dissertation, which are dedicated to techniques of two important steps in test case generation, i.e. generic test suite planning and test case specification. To stress the importance of test suite planning, Chapter 3 first examines the procedural steps in conformance testing. A framework of the Generic Test Suite (GTS) for SNMPv2 is also provided with a systematic discussion. Chapter 4 is devoted to test case specification for SNMPv2 with detailed discussions on data definition, behavior and test control descriptions respectively. Finally, Chapter 5 concluded this thesis followed by a forward view for future work.As the router testing system at SC-Netcom Lab is still under development and the test suite defined has not yet been applied to real testing, and for the reason that the SNMP protocol set is complex and involves twenty more RFCs, the work presented in this M. Sc. dissertation is preliminary. However, the author believes that this work will provide a sound basis for future "test suite specification", eapecially for a complete SNMP test sutie.