All the routers include a buffer in order to enqueue packets waiting to be transmitted. The behaviour of the routers' buffer is of primary importance when studying network traffic, since it may modify some characteristics, as delay or jitter, and may also drop packets. As a consequence, the characterization of this buffer is interesting, especially when real-time flows are being transmitted: if the buffer characteristics are known, then different techniques can be used so as to adapt the traffic: multiplexing a number of small packets into a big one, fragmentation, etc. This work presents a preliminary study of how to determine the technical and functional characteristics of the buffer of a certain device (as e.g. behaviour, size, limits, input and output rate), or even in a remote Internet network node. Two different methodologies are considered, and tested on two real scenarios which have been implemented; real measurements permit the estimation of the buffer size, and the input and output rates, when there is physical or remote access to the "System Under Test". In case of having physical access, the maximum number of packets in the queue can be determined by counting. In contrast, if the node is remote, its buffer size has to be estimated. We have obtained accurate results in wired and wireless networks.

中文翻译：

---

经验表征真实设备的缓冲区行为

所有路由器都包含一个缓冲区，以便将等待传输的数据包排入队列。在研究网络流量时，路由器缓冲区的行为是最重要的，因为它可能会修改某些特性，如延迟或抖动，也可能会丢弃数据包。因此，该缓冲区的特性很有趣，尤其是在传输实时流时：如果缓冲区特性已知，则可以使用不同的技术来调整流量：将多个小数据包复用为一个big one、fragmentation 等。 这项工作初步研究了如何确定某个设备的缓冲区的技术和功能特性（例如行为、大小、限制、输入和输出速率），甚至在远程 Internet 中网络节点。考虑了两种不同的方法，并在已实施的两个实际场景中进行了测试；当对“被测系统”进行物理或远程访问时，实际测量允许估计缓冲区大小以及输入和输出速率。在有物理访问的情况下，队列中的最大数据包数可以通过计数来确定。相反，如果节点是远程的，则必须估计其缓冲区大小。我们在有线和无线网络中获得了准确的结果。队列中的最大数据包数可以通过计数来确定。相反，如果节点是远程的，则必须估计其缓冲区大小。我们在有线和无线网络中获得了准确的结果。队列中的最大数据包数可以通过计数来确定。相反，如果节点是远程的，则必须估计其缓冲区大小。我们在有线和无线网络中获得了准确的结果。