Functional safety in a vehicle networking system

A method comprising:

• generating, by a logging mechanism located of a first network node of a vehicle networking system, diagnostic data by logging information from data packets as the data packets travel through the vehicle networking system during a testing mode, each of the data packets comprising payload data, the logging mechanism being configured to append the diagnostic data to one or more data packets as the one or more data packets travel through the vehicle networking system, the diagnostic data including data identifying the data packets logged by the logging mechanism and timestamps indicating times at which the data packets were logged by the logging mechanism;
• transmitting, to a first packet injector and a second packet injector of a second network node in the vehicle networking system, a command to execute the testing mode, the command including data identifying an execution time at which the first packet injector and the second packet injector are to begin executing the testing mode, the first packet injector and the second packet injector determining a current time based on internal clocks that are synchronized using a timing protocol, the command causing the first packet injector and the second packet injector to execute the testing mode, during the testing mode the first packet injector and the second packet injector transmit synchronized sequences of data packets within the vehicle networking system;
• receiving, by a second network node of the vehicle networking system, the one or more data packets, the second network node being either a destination of the one or more data packets or the second network node that dropped the one or more data packets;
• prior to payload data of the one or more data packets being passed to a next layer of the second network node, the second network node:
• extracting, from the one or more data packets, the diagnostic data that was appended to the one or more data packets by the logging mechanism;
• and
• checking the diagnostic data extracted from the one or more data packets;
• analyzing the diagnostic data by the second node, the diagnostic data describing data packet transmissions in the vehicle networking system during the testing mode, the data packet transmissions including a predetermined data packet sequence for testing a first network feature of the vehicle networking system, the predetermined data packet sequence being generated based on a programmable list of packets, each entry of the programmable list comprising information describing a test packet to be transmitted in the predetermined data packet sequence;
• determining, by the second network node and based on the diagnostic data, that the first network feature of the vehicle networking system is not performing as expected;
• and
• generating, by the second network node, a functional safety report indicating that the first network feature of the vehicle networking system is not performing as expected, the functional safety report including at least a portion of the diagnostic data.