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Simul."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,30]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>P4 serves as a programming language for configuring flexible and programmable network data planes, facilitating the development of custom protocols and programmable switches, and driving innovation in software-defined networking and network function virtualization. While the Linux container based network emulator, Mininet, coupled with the BMv2 software P4 switch, is widely used for rapid prototyping of P4-based applications, BMv2\u2019s diminished performance raises fidelity concerns under high traffic and large network scenarios. In this paper, we introduce a lightweight virtual time system integrated into Mininet with BMv2 to enhance fidelity and scalability. By applying a time dilation factor (TDF) to interactions between containers and the physical machine, we optimize the emulated P4 network\u2019s perceived speed from the application processes\u2019 perspective. System evaluation demonstrates accurate emulation of significantly larger networks under high loads with minimal system overhead. We showcase our system\u2019s utility through two network applications: an emulation of a TCP SYN flood attack and an ECMP load balancer. Evaluating against a production-grade software switch, Open vSwitch, and a physical testbed, we highlight the virtual time system\u2019s improvement in temporal fidelity despite the observed performance degradation in BMv2 software switches.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/3725530","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,21]],"date-time":"2025-03-21T11:09:08Z","timestamp":1742555348000},"page":"1-24","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Enhancing P4-Based Network Emulation Fidelity Through a Lightweight Virtual Time System and Application Evaluation"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"35","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8206-3491","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Gong","family":"Chen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, United States"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6039-234X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zheng","family":"Hu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Arkansas Fayetteville, Fayetteville, United States"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1682-0356","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yanfeng","family":"Qu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Arkansas Fayetteville, Fayetteville, United States"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9955-1432","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Dong","family":"Jin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science and Computer Engineering, University of Arkansas Fayetteville, Fayetteville, United States"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_1_2_2","unstructured":"2005. 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