May 2016 - ripe-atlas - mailman.ripe.net

Plan to Implement RIPE Atlas WiFi Measurements
by Robert Kisteleki 09 Oct '17

09 Oct '17

Dear colleagues, We wanted to update the community and let you know that we plan to start work on the proposed experiment with WiFi measurements in mid-2016. As we communicated in a recent RIPE Labs article, we will work with GÉANT as a test partner to learn more about the operational effects of introducing WiFi measurements to the RIPE Atlas system, in addition to the benefits we believe this could provide for the entire RIPE Atlas community. Please see the article for more details if you are interested: https://labs.ripe.net/Members/suzanne_taylor_muzzin/ripe-atlas-wifi-measure… We will continue to update you once we’ve begun work on this plan, and we welcome your comments in the meantime. Regards, Robert Kisteleki RIPE NCC

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RIPE Atlas Interface Hackathon, 21-22 May, Copenhagen
by Vesna Manojlovic 23 Jan '17

23 Jan '17

Dear colleagues, Calling all front-end developers, UI designers, network operators and other enthusiastic coders! The next RIPE Atlas hackathon takes place 21-22 May in Copenhagen, the weekend before the RIPE 72 Meeting. We're looking for creative thinkers to help us develop new interfaces for RIPE Atlas. All source code developed during the hackathon will be publicly licensed and available on GitHub, and will be free for the entire community to use. -------------------- How to Apply -------------------- Interested? Learn more and apply online today! https://atlas.ripe.net/hackathon/Interface/?pk_campaign=hackathon&pk_kwd=li… *The application deadline is 23 March* Please note that we are unfortunately unable to provide travel or accommodation funding. We look forward to seeing you there! Regards, Vesna and the RIPE Atlas Team

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Probe marked as offline, but it's online...
by Christian Schrötter 10 Nov '16

10 Nov '16

Hello Atlas users! I've connected my probe to a new network environment, to test everything before the big migration starts. It came up again immediately and displayed it's new network details at the WebUI. For the first time there was an IPv6-ULA prefix visible. The router (OpenWrt 15.05) supports full IPv6 via tunnel, but it's not advertised to the probe's VLAN and blocked by firewall rules. Everything seems to work, good! I've switched it off/on for several times, went back to the old router/modem and powered it on again. After some hours I've checked the WebUI again: My probe is offline! :-( I've tested it again on the new router: Offline! Once again on the old setup: Offline! Untouched default router/modem from my ISP: Offline! Current LED status: (from 1-5; power to button) > on > off > slow blink > on > on SOS-DNS-history from Wireshark: (switch port mirrored to my analysis interface) > Standard query 0x0002 AAAA U.*************.sos.atlas.ripe.net > Standard query response 0x0002 AAAA 2001:67c:2e8:11::c100:1337 > Standard query 0x0003 A U.*************.sos.atlas.ripe.net > Standard query response 0x0003 A 193.0.19.55 The probe is online and communicates with many servers. Looks like the built-in tests are running fine. There is NTP, DNS, ICMP, UDP and HTTP traffic. But it's still offline at the WebUI. I've double and triple checked everything on my side. Any ideas what's going wrong? -- With kind regards, Christian Schrötter

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Fwd: Probe 2317 is down (home fibre)
by Colin Johnston 25 Jul '16

25 Jul '16

seems fine to me ? dont have connectivity to ripe site though from BT network range in uk what is telia upto ? Colins-iMac:~ colinj$ traceroute www.ripe.net traceroute to www.ripe.net (193.0.6.139), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets 1 bthomehub (192.168.1.254) 1.913 ms 1.078 ms 1.078 ms 2 * * * 3 * * * 4 31.55.185.196 (31.55.185.196) 16.187 ms 15.477 ms 15.443 ms 5 195.99.127.142 (195.99.127.142) 15.557 ms 195.99.127.130 (195.99.127.130) 16.274 ms 195.99.127.128 (195.99.127.128) 16.602 ms 6 vhsaccess2-pos1-0.faraday.fixed.bt.net (195.99.127.9) 16.979 ms 16.611 ms 195.99.127.25 (195.99.127.25) 17.097 ms 7 166-49-211-240.eu.bt.net (166.49.211.240) 16.413 ms 166-49-211-236.eu.bt.net (166.49.211.236) 16.225 ms 166-49-211-238.eu.bt.net (166.49.211.238) 15.821 ms 8 213.248.82.249 (213.248.82.249) 16.880 ms 15.785 ms 15.470 ms 9 ldn-bb2-link.telia.net (62.115.137.194) 16.633 ms 213.248.82.249 (213.248.82.249) 15.631 ms 15.400 ms 10 ldn-bb3-link.telia.net (80.91.248.90) 15.776 ms ldn-bb2-link.telia.net (213.155.136.62) 16.815 ms adm-bb4-link.telia.net (62.115.142.221) 22.936 ms 11 adm-b2-link.telia.net (62.115.141.51) 25.759 ms adm-b2-link.telia.net (80.91.253.182) 22.263 ms adm-b2-link.telia.net (62.115.141.17) 21.979 ms 12 adm-b2-link.telia.net (80.91.253.182) 22.481 ms adm-b2-link.telia.net (62.115.141.9) 22.344 ms adm-b2-link.telia.net (62.115.141.63) 27.606 ms Colin > Begin forwarded message: > > From: RIPE Atlas (no reply) <no-reply(a)ripe.net> > Subject: Probe 2317 is down (home fibre) > Date: 21 June 2015 20:30:07 BST > To: colinj(a)mx5.org.uk > > Dear Dear colin johnston, > > Your probe 2317 has been disconnected since 2015-06-21 18:49:16 UTC. > > This is an automatically generated email from RIPE Atlas. It was sent to you because you asked to be notified if your probe becomes disconnected for more than 30 minutes. > > If you want to change this, or disable this notification altogether, please go to https://atlas.ripe.net/probes/2317/, and click the "edit" button under "Notifications". > > Kind regards, > > RIPE Atlas Team > atlas(a)ripe.net

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Hackathon code & presentations?
by Hank Nussbacher 28 May '16

28 May '16

https://labs.ripe.net/Members/suzanne_taylor_muzzin/ripe-atlas-interface-ha… Any code or presentations to share? Is the code available on Github yet? Thanks, Hank

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Update on problem with probes’ USB sticks
by Andreas Strikos 25 May '16

25 May '16

Hi all, We want to let you know that we have seen the active conversations about the USB sticks and the problems they’re causing for some RIPE Atlas probes. We are aware of these issues, and are taking steps to ensure this doesn’t become a real problem for the RIPE Atlas system. We’ve just published a RIPE Labs article that explains the preliminary analysis of our logs we’ve begun to investigate this issue. In the coming weeks, we will make sure we analyse all the logs we have in order to try to find a possible solution. We will keep you posted with any updates we have through this article. https://labs.ripe.net/Members/philip_homburg/a-visual-impression-of-probe-l… We apologise for the inconvenience this is causing for some of our users. Thank you for continuing to be a part of RIPE Atlas. Regards, Andreas Strikos (on behalf of the RIPE Atlas team)

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v4 versus v6 -- who connects faster?
by Bajpai, Vaibhav 24 May '16

24 May '16

Hello, -- sorry for cross-posting Here [a] is a toy v6 service I came up with during the RIPE Atlas hackathon over this weekend. Thought I share this along: [a] http://goo.gl/hbzbwD You enter a dual-stacked website (ALEXA top 10K) and it shows you the difference in TCP connect times over v4 and v6 as seen by all dual-stacked RIPE Atlas probes (~1.3K probes). You can also filter the visualisation from a specific origin-AS. This additional filter can be useful to view performance towards a website from a specific origin-AS (say DTAG). Disclaimer: This is an outcome of a 1.5d long hackathon project. As such, the codebase is possibly inundated with bugs. Please don’t see it as a production service :-) Best, Vaibhav =================================== Vaibhav Bajpai www.vaibhavbajpai.com Room 91, Research I School of Engineering and Sciences Jacobs University Bremen, Germany ===================================

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USB drive more harmful than helpful?
by Michael Ionescu 24 May '16

24 May '16

>From both my own (short term) experience and from what's being written on this list, I'm getting the impression that the USB drive may be costing more than it's worth. I have in only about 3 months experienced multiple probe issues due to USB drives and there have been multiple threads on this list which suggest that I am far from alone. I will go so far as to suspect that a substantial number of disconnected and abandoned probes have similar issues, but the hosters may be unwilling or unable to spend the necessary time to investigate and resolve them. If the main reason for the drive is to cache data during unavailability of the command and control center, this may not be worth the effort. I would suggest making the drive optional. That may mean fewer data points from and/or fewer UDMs possible on those probes without a functioning drive. But it may also mean a couple thousand probes more connected and therefore available for measurements at all. I'm not saying that probes should not ask for their drives to be fixed/replaced, but it should not be a requirement for the probe to run. One might give an incentive to hosters to run their probes with functioning drives by giving less credits for connected probes without a drive. Any thoughts? Michael -- Sent from a mobile. Please excuse my brevity. // M: +49-163-6866568

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New on RIPE Labs: New RIPE Atlas APIs and User Manuals
by Mirjam Kühne 23 May '16

23 May '16

Dear colleagues, We've updated the RIPE Atlas APIs - and there's a comprehensive new manual to explain how to use them. As a result, the current (version 1) APIs are still available for now, but will be deprecated by the end of the year. Please find more information on RIPE Labs: https://labs.ripe.net/Members/suzanne_taylor_muzzin/new-ripe-atlas-apis?pk_… Kind regards, Mirjam Kuehne RIPE NCC Sent via RIPE Forum -- https://www.ripe.net/participate/mail/forum

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Re: [atlas] USB drive more harmful than helpful?
by Michael Ionescu 22 May '16

22 May '16

It was powered through the dedicated wall plug included with the probe. On May 22, 2016 12:03:39 AM GMT+02:00, Phillip Remaker <remaker(a)gmail.com> wrote: >How was the drive powered? Dedicated supply, or a port on a router? > >On Sat, May 21, 2016 at 1:32 PM, Michael Ionescu <mhi(a)ionescu.de> >wrote: > >> On May 20, 2016 9:08:08 PM GMT+02:00, Phillip Remaker ><remaker(a)gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >I don't suppose RIPE buys enough USB sticks to get to talk to >engineers >> >at SanDISK? >> >> I just had a Verbatim drive originally supplied with the probe go >> read-only, so I would say RIPE is not procuring only SanDISK.

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Re: [atlas] USB drive more harmful than helpful?
by Michael Ionescu 21 May '16

21 May '16

On May 20, 2016 3:58:06 PM GMT+02:00, Philip Homburg <philip.homburg(a)ripe.net> wrote: >No, the probe actually runs from the USB stick. The internal 4MB flash >is just enough to initialize the USB stick in a secure way. And even >that is already tricky. Could you perhaps write some statistical data regarding drive usage to a cleartext partition that could be evaluated by the hoster once the probe is in limbo? --

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Re: [atlas] USB drive issues
by Geert Jan de Groot 21 May '16

21 May '16

At the first hint of trouble, it may actually have been premature, I swapped the USB drive on my probe with a brandname replacement. Note that there is a lot of poor quality stuff, especially in "giveaway" drives, and the fact that the disc is encrypted of course does not help heuristics in the USB drive controller to lengthen the drive life. The replacement was painless: power down, insert blank disk, powerup, did the dishes, when I was done the probe was done initializing and everything was working fine. I've added "replaced-broken-sandisk-usb-stick" to the probe. Perhaps this is a useful heuristic to monitor how prevalent the problem really is. Geert Jan

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Re: [atlas] Probe is down but does send DNS according tot SOS history
by gboonie 21 May '16

21 May '16

No. Everything seemed normal except that it was down. All tags like "IPv4 works" etc. were there. The only thing was that the status was down. So I pulled the power, pulled USB, replaced the power. Went to brush my teeth and came back to replace USB and went to bed around 23:30 (21:30UTC) A few hours (!) later the probe came back to live. The power for the probe comes from the modem. That might be a possible cause, I'm thinking. Could the developers please see if the probe can indicate power shortage? Could it get some recovering mechanism built in? Op 21-5-2016 om 01:14 schreef Phillip Remaker: > Does it have the "Hardware Problem Suspected" tag? It may have a > failing USB sick and can only get up far enough to send SOS messages. > > On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 1:13 PM, gboonie <gboonie(a)gmail.com > <mailto:gboonie@gmail.com>> wrote: > > Hi, > > How can it be that the status of a probe is down while I see > current DNS requests in the SOS list without any remarks in the > 'info' column? Even the power-up time is increasing. > > If the probe can send DNS requests, why does it not have some > mechanism to recover? Seem not too hard to make it reboot if it's > status is down. > > Thanks, > Dave > > > > >

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Re: [atlas] USB drive more harmful than helpful?
by Joe Provo 20 May '16

20 May '16

Fwiw, I always power directly from an outlet, never tributary on the USB. I've yet to have such fails, so my anecdata aligns with the underpower theory. On May 20, 2016 15:08, "Phillip Remaker" <remaker(a)gmail.com> wrote: So I have a few theories. I have now had 3 different USB sticks fail on me: Two Sandisk 4GB SDCZ33 and one cheap generic 8GB replacement. The power draw of the TP-Link system + USB is probably more than the opportunistic USB ports they get plugged in to. An underpowered probe runs great MOST of the time, but a flash bit write is probably the highest power strain and Flash can get really unhappy with power interrupts, based on this SSD research: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/fast13/fast13-final80.pdf I usually use a 500mA or 800mA supply, or tap a nearby router USB port in that range. I suspect the system may demand 1200mA or more. When most flash sticks get errored out enough, they permanently fail into a read only mode, or become fully unreadable. Read-only mode can be reset on some models, but it is not recommended by the vendor. At least one of the failed SANdisk units I had was stuck in a read-only mode. Also, probes may be subjected to ungraceful power down situations, depending on where they are stationed. That can also be a flash drive killer. I don't think we are hitting the write limits of the sticks. I suspect the units are often in underpowered or ungraceful pwoer-down situations, or the USB flash itself is not responding gracefully to poweroff situations. I don't suppose RIPE buys enough USB sticks to get to talk to engineers at SanDISK? I know the newer Raspberry Pi will report when it is in an underpowered situation. Can the TP-Link detect and warn when underpowered? What is the minimum power recommended for TP-Link + USB? Also, are there any USB sticks that have lower power needs and are more robust in low power IoT situations? Is anyone trying to post-mortem the failed sticks? On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 10:03 AM, Gert Doering <gert(a)space.net> wrote: > Hi, > > On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 04:10:47PM +0200, Philip Homburg wrote: > > We have no clear idea why they fail. It seems that time to failure is > > highly variable. > > Can you correlate tests-until-failure or data-written-until-failure? > > One of mine has failed at least two times now, and it could be that > people just *love* to run tests from 3320... > > My gen 1 probe in 5539 has never had *any* issues. > > gert > -- > have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? > > SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard > Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann > D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) > Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279 >

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Probe is down but does send DNS according tot SOS history
by gboonie 20 May '16

20 May '16

Hi, How can it be that the status of a probe is down while I see current DNS requests in the SOS list without any remarks in the 'info' column? Even the power-up time is increasing. If the probe can send DNS requests, why does it not have some mechanism to recover? Seem not too hard to make it reboot if it's status is down. Thanks, Dave

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New on RIPE Labs: There Is Gold in This Stream - Sifting Through Used RIPE Atlas Traceroute Results
by Mirjam Kühne 20 May '16

20 May '16

Dear colleagues, Please find a new article on RIPE Labs demonstrating the value of the results collected by RIPE Atlas independent of the original purpose for collecting them. Using all traceroute results from a particular day as an example, we first show that near real-time analysis of the result stream is feasible. Then we show that this has great potential for studying the packet layer of the Internet in general and for providing tools to network operators in particular. All this suggests a large and diverse potential for further work. https://labs.ripe.net/Members/dfk/there-is-gold-in-this-stream?pk_campaign=… Kind regards, Mirjam Kuehne RIPE NCC Sent via RIPE Forum -- https://www.ripe.net/participate/mail/forum

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Replacing flash key
by Marat Khalili 20 May '16

20 May '16

My V3 probe (26656) disconnected yesterday, simple reboots didn't help. Suspecting problem with USB key I first tried to replace it with a new one. I took bog standard Transcend JetFlash 350 8Gb right out of the wrapping and inserted it into a started probe 10 minutes after boot. Did not format the flash key or alter it in any way, because someone previously said that it is not necessary. Unfortunately, probe did not come up, and the flash key seems unchanged after approximately 1 hour wait. What should I do to switch to a new flash key? Also, did someone tried connecting HDDs/SSDs, shouldn't they work better? (Probe did appear after I inserted previously used flash key into it, but I suspect problem will re-occur in the future, so I'd like to know a way to fix it more permanently.) -- With Best Regards, Marat Khalili

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evaluating ripe atlas
by Rafal.Jankowski＠thomsonreuters.com 19 May '16

19 May '16

Dear Ripe Atlas Users, I would like to evaluate ripe atlas features. Is there any quick and simple way to earn credits? From what I can see becoming sponsorship begins from 1000 EUR which is above my budget for evaluating the tool. Hosting probe is not something feasible for me at the moment. Is there any option to buy credits for something like 100 EUR? Also I wanted to see webinar recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJMFGuM0kMo linked on https://atlas.ripe.net/resources/training-and-materials/ but it seems to be unavailable. Regards, Rafał ________________________________ This e-mail is for the sole use of the intended recipient and contains information that may be privileged and/or confidential. If you are not an intended recipient, please notify the sender by return e-mail and delete this e-mail and any attachments. Certain required legal entity disclosures can be accessed on our website.<http://site.thomsonreuters.com/site/disclosures/>

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probe coverage map?
by Bajpai, Vaibhav 18 May '16

18 May '16

Hello, What happened to the probe coverage map that showed number of probes at different level of details depending on the zoomed-in state of the map? — I have an earlier screenshot [a] (2015) to explain what I mean. It was a very nice plot. [a] http://i.imgur.com/d0tI1qP.png I was looking for a probe coverage map to put in one of my slides. I ended up using [b], but I miss [a]. [b] https://www-static.ripe.net/static/rnd-ui/atlas/static/page/img/allprobes.p… Best, Vaibhav =================================== Vaibhav Bajpai www.vaibhavbajpai.com Room 91, Research I School of Engineering and Sciences Jacobs University Bremen, Germany ===================================

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New on RIPE Labs: Pinpointing Delay and Forwarding Anomalies using RIPE Atlas Built-in Measurements
by Mirjam Kuehne 18 May '16

18 May '16

Dear colleagues, Detecting network disruptions is a recurring problem. Clearly locating performance degradation is an important step in debugging and subsequently fixing connectivity issues. In this new RIPE Labs article the authors propose a set of complementary methods to detect network disruptions from traceroute measurements created by RIPE Atlas Built-In Measurements: https://labs.ripe.net/Members/romain_fontugne/pinpointing-delay-and-forward… Kind regards, Mirjam Kuehne RIPE NCC

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Adding additional probes to existing measurement or exchange them
by Annika Wickert 18 May '16

18 May '16

Hi everybody, I just stumbled across this problem, that I want to exchange probes on a actual running measurement because some of the probes I defined 2weeks ago went offline. And I want other probes to take over their job. Is that possible in any way? Cheers, Annika Wickert

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USB drive
by Michael Ionescu 13 May '16

13 May '16

Hi all, I have a probe that's been down for several days now. I did contact RIPE about it, but support has been superficial. I also didn't yet find the level of technical detail I need in the information on the website and in this list's archives. The 8GB drive, when reformatted on a windows box with FAT32 as per support instructions, surprisingly only comes out with a 1GB partition. Inspecting the drive under linux, I find multiple partitions, with only the first containing an a fat32 filesystem: Platte /dev/sdc: 7927 MByte, 7927234560 Byte 244 Köpfe, 62 Sektoren/Spur, 1023 Zylinder, zusammen 15482880 Sektoren Einheiten = Sektoren von 1 × 512 = 512 Bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Festplattenidentifikation: 0xc3072e18 Gerät boot. Anfang Ende Blöcke Id System /dev/sdc1 2048 2099199 1048576 b W95 FAT32 /dev/sdc2 2099200 4196351 1048576 83 Linux /dev/sdc3 4196352 6293503 1048576 83 Linux On first glance, the others contain ext2 filesystems # fsck -N /dev/sdc? fsck von util-linux 2.20.1 [/sbin/fsck.vfat (1) -- /dev/sdc1] fsck.vfat /dev/sdc1 [/sbin/fsck.ext2 (2) -- /dev/sdc2] fsck.ext2 /dev/sdc2 [/sbin/fsck.ext2 (3) -- /dev/sdc3] fsck.ext2 /dev/sdc3 but on further inspections do not contain a valid magic number in their superblocks, so they are effectively unformatted. I would therefore suspect that they are not being used by the probe. Now the question: What is the correct layout supposed to look like (primary/secondary, size, ID, FS-type)? I would like to get my probe back up and running. Bonus question: What can I expect to find in point of files/data on the drive, that would tell me whether the probe was working correctly until I cut power and removed the drive? Thanks, Michael

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[dagstuhl seminar]: global measurements: practice and experience
by Bajpai, Vaibhav 12 May '16

12 May '16

Dear RIPE Atlas / MAT WG -- sorry for cross-posting. A SIGCOMM CCR article summarising the Dagstuhl seminar on ‘Global Measurements: Practice and Experience’ just came online [a]. Thought to share it with you: [a] http://www.sigcomm.org/sites/default/files/ccr/papers/2016/April/0000000-00… Background: ===================== We recently helped organise a Dagstuhl seminar on Global Measurements: Practice and Experience [b] from January 04 – 07, 2016. This was a followup of the seminar on Global Measurement Framework [c] which focused on the development of global Internet measurement platforms and associated metrics. [b] http://www.dagstuhl.de/16012 [c] http://www.dagstuhl.de/13472 The second seminar aimed at discussing the practical experience gained with building global measurement platforms. It brought together people who are actively involved in the design and maintenance of global measurement systems, who do research on the data delivered by global measurement systems, and who use data derived from global measurement systems in order to manage networks or services or as input for regulatory decisions. ===================== Best, Vaibhav =================================== Vaibhav Bajpai www.vaibhavbajpai.com Room 91, Research I School of Engineering and Sciences Jacobs University Bremen, Germany ===================================

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Number of probes
by Marc Sanchez 11 May '16

11 May '16

I'm new in RIPE and I don't know it enough deeper. I need to check the state of several networks and I'm wondering how many probes should I need to measure a ping between two ASN. Could be enough using just one probe for each measurement? Sorry for the inconvenience. Sent via RIPE Forum -- https://www.ripe.net/participate/mail/forum

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probe congestion?
by Paul Vlaar 11 May '16

11 May '16

Hi all, while running a DNS UDM on a fixed set of (reused from a previous UDM) probes, I noticed the following. When I start 6 UDMs against the same set using the web UI, as a one-off measurement, starting "now", the RTTs for all of the measurements shoots up on all of the probes (500-1000+ ms). When I start the 6 tests individually, the RTTs are much lower, and close to what I'd expect them to be. It appears to me that when multiple UDMs are scheduled on the same probe, these should be run in serial, not parallel, in order to not run into congestion issues. Or am I simply expecting the wrong behaviour, and should I not schedule one-off measurements in parallel in the first place? ~paul

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