github.com/cilium/fake

fake - generate random data for testing and/or performance evaluation

Fake is a Go library and CLI to generate random data such as names, adjectives, IP addresses and so on.

This repository contains three Go modules:

• github.com/cilium/fake: a library to generate generic random data which can be useful to any project (e.g. fake.Adjective(), fake.IP(), ...).
• github.com/cilium/fake/flow: a library to generate random Hubble network flows and flow related data. This library is only relevant to projects directly related to Cilium and/or Hubble.
• github.com/cilium/fake/cmd: a CLI to generate random data.

As opposed to most fake data generator Go libraries, a design philosophy of this library is to allow fine-grained control over generated data.

Let's illustrate this with an example. Instead of having separate functions to generate IPv4 and IPv6 addresses (e.g. fake.IPv4() and fake.IPv6()), there is a single fake.IP() function. However, this generator function, like most others, can take optional arguments. By default, i.e. when no option is specified (fake.IP()), it generates a random IP address which can be either v4 or v6. However, when passing the option to generate IPv4 addresses only (fake.IP(fake.WithIPv4()) option, only v4 addresses are generated. It is also possible to pass an option to specify a CIDR that randomly generated IP addresses must belong to (e.g. fake.IP(fake.WithIPCIDR("10.0.0.0/8"))).

Compared to other fake data generator Go libraries such as github.com/icrowley/fake or github.com/bxcodec/faker, this library does not (yet) support as many generators (contributions welcome!).

Installing the CLI

Go needs to be installed. Then, from either the root directory or the cmd subdirectory, the fake binary can be compiled and installed via the install make target. E.g.

make install

By default, it installs the binary to /usr/local/bin/fake. The destination directory can be specified using the BINDIR environment variable, e.g.:

BINDIR=~/.local/bin make install