- ripe-atlas - mailman.ripe.net

Bug reports about Atlas
by Stephane Bortzmeyer 05 Jul '24

05 Jul '24

It seems that writing to atlas(a)ripe.net does not go to the Atlas team, but to a generic RIPE-NCC helpdesk, which knows noting about Atlas and sends back funny, but unrelated answers. What is the preferred way to report bugs about Atlas?

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Missing user tags
by Stephane Bortzmeyer 04 Jul '24

04 Jul '24

We all know that user tags are imperfect and there is not a lot we can do (except pinging from time to time the hosts, like ICANN does with "Keep your social data up-to-date for your domain", with mixed success). One of the problems is that people tag correctly (I hope so) but do not always tag when it would be useful. For instance, the tag "nat" is sometimes given to probes without NAT (see for instance probes 1000929, 1005290, 1008281 or 50663) but the opposite is much more common. When requesting a measurement withOUT tag "nat", 3/4 of the selected probes have a RFC 1918 IP address (see measurement #74862711) and are certainly NATted. It seems that for many hosts, "nat" is the default.

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Re: [atlas] Atlas probes in non-production networks
by Ponikierski, Grzegorz 02 Jul '24

02 Jul '24

Since we talk about usage of public service, I think that there is nothing to hide. Let me answer all questions. Problem refers to these PCCW AS3491 probes: 7007 7010 7032 7079 7080 7172 7198 1002754 1002771 1002785 1002844 1003737 1005609 They are are virtual anchor and software probes. PCCW has more probes but according to my data they are fine. Problem is observed for IPv6 routing. You can check built-in IPv6 traceroutes towards F root server. You can see that everything is routed into link between PCCW and HE AS6939 in Kuala Lumpur, MY. If you check PCCW routing towards F root server using their looking glass (so their production network) everything will look normal and won’t be routed via HE. As for now, these probes don’t have any tags or description that will allow you distinguish them from other, normal probes. Regards, Grzegorz From: ripe-atlas <ripe-atlas-bounces(a)ripe.net> on behalf of "Ponikierski, Grzegorz via ripe-atlas" <ripe-atlas(a)ripe.net> Reply to: "Ponikierski, Grzegorz" <gponikie(a)akamai.com> Date: Tuesday, 2 July 2024 at 11:38 To: "ripe-atlas(a)ripe.net" <ripe-atlas(a)ripe.net> Subject: [atlas] Atlas probes in non-production networks Hi all! I discovered a disturbing practice how RIPE Atlas probes are used by at least one major provider which significantly impacts measurement results and interpretation of these results. I want to share it with you to open discuss about how to deal with such cases. I was doing traceroutes for one of Tier 1 provider which is very well covered by RIPE Atlas probes. I was surprised, that for some probes I got RTTs 100x worse than expected. After verification I discovered that routing for these probes is absurd and contact the provider to explain it. It turned out, that these probes are deployed in this part of their network that provide for some kind of internal service which is not provided for customers of this provider. In other words, these probes don't measure production network, but they measure some kind of hidden experimental network not available for the public. In my private opinion, this practice is against the whole idea of RIPE Atlas, and it is a form of appropriation of the platform for solely private purpose disregarding interest of the RIPE Atlas community. As far I understand, RIPE Atlas supposed to be used to measure public Internet and it was not prepared to be used as internal/private measurement platform. RIPE Atlas probes are not tagged and separated into groups that can be used appropriately for public and internal/private measurements. Therefore, descripted practice creates another uncomfortable situation for RIPE Atlas user because there is no way to tell which probe is deployed in public/production part of the network and which one in the experimental/non-production one. I guess that most of us want to measure production networks and if there is somebody that want to play with experimental stuff then it should be clearly marked as experimental. Please share your thoughts and ideas how to deal with it. Regards, Grzegorz Ponikierski Senior Network Engineer Akamai Technologies AS20940

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Atlas probes in non-production networks
by Ponikierski, Grzegorz 02 Jul '24

02 Jul '24

Hi all! I discovered a disturbing practice how RIPE Atlas probes are used by at least one major provider which significantly impacts measurement results and interpretation of these results. I want to share it with you to open discuss about how to deal with such cases. I was doing traceroutes for one of Tier 1 provider which is very well covered by RIPE Atlas probes. I was surprised, that for some probes I got RTTs 100x worse than expected. After verification I discovered that routing for these probes is absurd and contact the provider to explain it. It turned out, that these probes are deployed in this part of their network that provide for some kind of internal service which is not provided for customers of this provider. In other words, these probes don't measure production network, but they measure some kind of hidden experimental network not available for the public. In my private opinion, this practice is against the whole idea of RIPE Atlas, and it is a form of appropriation of the platform for solely private purpose disregarding interest of the RIPE Atlas community. As far I understand, RIPE Atlas supposed to be used to measure public Internet and it was not prepared to be used as internal/private measurement platform. RIPE Atlas probes are not tagged and separated into groups that can be used appropriately for public and internal/private measurements. Therefore, descripted practice creates another uncomfortable situation for RIPE Atlas user because there is no way to tell which probe is deployed in public/production part of the network and which one in the experimental/non-production one. I guess that most of us want to measure production networks and if there is somebody that want to play with experimental stuff then it should be clearly marked as experimental. Please share your thoughts and ideas how to deal with it. Regards, Grzegorz Ponikierski Senior Network Engineer Akamai Technologies AS20940

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FW: Ripe Atlas Speeds.
by Josseth Villacis 02 Jul '24

02 Jul '24

From: Josseth Villacis <Josseth.Villacis(a)detecon.com> Date: Monday, July 1, 2024 at 1:10 PM To: ripe-atlas(a)ripe.net <ripe-atlas(a)ripe.net> Subject: Ripe Atlas Speeds. Dear<mailto:ripe-atlas@ripe.net> Ripe Atlas community, We are Detecon an telecommunication consulting company and we would like to know what is the availability of data you have, and what is the cost of having that information ? Also, we would like to know for our network analysis from your data if: Is there a way to determine if a speed test is performed on a mobile network operator’s network in India? Specifically, do MNOs and fixed network operators use the same ASN (Autonomous System Number)? Reference: [MNO List with ASN](https://github.com/nitindermohan/multifaceted-starlink-performance/blo… If MNOs and fixed network operators do use the same ASN, is there an alternative method to distinguish fixed speeds from those on a wireless network? For example, see [Distinguishing Between Fixed and Mobile IP Addresses](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/distinguishing-between-fixed-mobi….

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Minor nit in first monthly probe report after registration
by ripe＠nurfuerspam.de 01 Jul '24

01 Jul '24

Resent, hopefully without HTML formatting this time (sorry for earlier) Hi, A minor nit with regards to the availability time in the monthly probe report for the month the probe was registered in: The total availability indicated is bogus as the whole month is taken as the calculation interval as its basis, rather than only the time since probe registration. Calculation interval : 2024-06-01 00:00:00 - 2024-07-01 00:00:00 Total Connected Time : 0d 14:40 Total Disconnected Time : 29d 09:19 Total Availability : 2.04% +------------------+---------------------+---------------+-----------------------+ | Disconnected for | Connected at (UTC) | Connected for | Disconnected at (UTC) | +------------------+---------------------+---------------+-----------------------+ | - | 2024-06-30 08:52:15 | 0d 00:36 | 2024-06-30 09:29:07 | | 0d 00:04 | 2024-06-30 09:33:30 | 0d 03:20 | 2024-06-30 12:54:07 | | 0d 00:01 | 2024-06-30 12:55:49 | 0d 00:04 | 2024-06-30 13:00:17 | | 0d 00:04 | 2024-06-30 13:04:44 | 0d 01:35 | 2024-06-30 14:39:54 | | 0d 00:01 | 2024-06-30 14:40:55 | 0d 00:32 | 2024-06-30 15:13:10 | | 0d 00:10 | 2024-06-30 15:23:30 | 0d 00:02 | 2024-06-30 15:26:26 | | 0d 00:05 | 2024-06-30 15:32:13 | 0d 08:27 | Still connected | +------------------+---------------------+---------------+-----------------------+ I guess just an optical issue rather than a problem, maybe a bit misleading. The UI seems to take the fractional aspect into account, which seems more relevant. Connection Information Probe's birthday: 2024-06-30 Time Connected Percent Last Week 21h 11m 97.87% Last Month 21h 11m 97.87% All Time 21h 11m 97.87% Kind regards, R.

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Minor nit in first monthly probe report after registration
by ripe＠nurfuerspam.de 01 Jul '24

01 Jul '24

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[NTP measurements] Minimum offset if negative
by Stephane Bortzmeyer 28 Jun '24

28 Jun '24

Measurement #74488034 says on <https://atlas.ripe.net/measurements/74488034>: "Min Offset: -1 173,799". Since offsets can be positive or negative, I suggest it is not a good idea to take the minimum without first removing the sign. Here, the real minimum offset was -0.000345 (the closest from the server) and the maximum -1.173799 (the farthest from the server). (There is also a strange formatting on the Web, and a lack of units.)

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[NTP measurements] Work with some servers but not all
by Stephane Bortzmeyer 27 Jun '24

27 Jun '24

I'm playing with NTP measurements and I observe that RIPE Atlas probes can talk to some public NTP servers but not all. See for instance measurements #74488034 (it works) and #74487872 (it fails). Testing with other NTP clients succeed with these two servers (ntp.nic.fr and ntp.netnod.se). I do not understand the reason for this difference. The servers which do work: ntp.nic.fr time.cloudflare.com time.google.com 0.pool.ntp.org ntp-p1.obspm.fr The servers which fail with RIPE Atlas probes but work otherwise: ntp.netnod.se time.nist.gov

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[HTTP measurements] Units of timing?
by Stephane Bortzmeyer 27 Jun '24

27 Jun '24

When using "extended_timing" with HTTP measurements, in what units are tt*? I suspect that ttr is in seconds and the other two in milli-seconds but I want to be sure. (The Web interface does not display these values, it seems, but see measurement #74293060 if you want an example.)

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