Comparison of HW and SW Probes
Hello everybody! Currently, I am investigating the possibilities of measurements using RIPE Atlas. Is there information about differences in the measurement results of HW and SW probes? My advisor said that I should rather not use SW probes, but I am not sure what the actual difference is, especially as SW probes often run on better hardware, compared to the HW probes. Could you point me to some resources on that topic? Best regards, Robert
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 at 12:46, Richter, Robert via ripe-atlas <ripe-atlas@ripe.net> wrote:
Hello everybody! Currently, I am investigating the possibilities of measurements using RIPE Atlas. Is there information about differences in the measurement results of HW and SW probes? My advisor said that I should rather not use SW probes, but I am not sure what the actual difference is, especially as SW probes often run on better hardware, compared to the HW probes.
Could you point me to some resources on that topic?
Use SW probes. HW probes are: - very limited and approval is prioritized for regions with minimal coverage; Germany is not a region with minimal coverage - shipping can be a mess, I think for a period of time 100% of the probes going to Italy where intercepted in shipping. Perhaps somebody thought the probes would be particularly valuable. - HW can become unreliable, I have spend many hours and bought additional USB sticks following RIPE procedures to keep a probe online, only to see the probe die again after 6 months I'm running SW probes where I can and stopped jumping through hops to keep HW probes online. The HW issues are especially costly to fix for the probe operator when the probes are in hard to reach Pops. Nowadays we should be able to run a (unsupported) Atlas container on 100€-ish Mikrotik Routers. That seems like a much better idea if you are operating the router anyway. Unfortunately the supported SW probes are limited to RHEL and Debian packages. Running a probe in docker or OpenWRT is possible and works fine but is not officially supported. Lukas
Hi Robert, I am using an atlas probe (HW) since more than 7 years and since a while a software probe on a different location too. The good news first: it is an important tool for networking. Many thanks to the team for this environment. The bad news: I had issues with both. The weak point with the HW is the USB flash. But this has nothing to do with the probe itself. These memory sticks are not build to be alive forever. Also the SW died. But not in a way that the process died. The probe was simple offline. So just pinging ( for HW ) or looking if the process is running ( for SW ) is not enough. Even there is a solution. There is an API available to verify if the probe is available for the network. So it makes sense to integrate the test into your monitoring tool ( nagios, checkmk, .... ) what ever you are using just for the seldom case it should break. Kind regards Hans -- On 23.08.25 12:46, Richter, Robert via ripe-atlas wrote:
Hello everybody! Currently, I am investigating the possibilities of measurements using RIPE Atlas. Is there information about differences in the measurement results of HW and SW probes? My advisor said that I should rather not use SW probes, but I am not sure what the actual difference is, especially as SW probes often run on better hardware, compared to the HW probes.
Could you point me to some resources on that topic?
Best regards, Robert
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btw, has anyone ran sw probe on fbsd? last time i heard it requires complete rewrite. unsure. maybe linux compat jail? could also run vm of course. i can't recall ripe providing vm images. but isn't vm like bad idea to test networks. latency. jitter? also, previously hw probes are like ripe owned and managed propery to avoid measurement skew what about sw ones? there's no control there. unsure tho how many try to screw with atlas on purpose, be it hw or sw...
(Answering this particular mail but answering the question in general) Hardware probes are designed to be mostly "plug and forget" - they self-configure and when new firmwares are available they are automatically upgraded. Some hosts like this a lot. Admittedly, the different generations are not equal - v3s in particular may need more attention... Software probes need a bit more hand-holding from the host - the OS and the networking part, and occasional upgrade of the firmware package. VMs are fine as well. This is obviously more for those who know these bits and are willing/happy to nurture the OS. In return there's much more visibility on what's going on "inside"; after all it's an open source package. At the moment we don't support BSDs. This *may* change in the future as a byproduct of internal technical changes, but I cannot say for certain. I'm happy to put such words in the FAQ for posterity. Regards, Robert On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 7:53 PM Sulev-Madis Silber via ripe-atlas < ripe-atlas@ripe.net> wrote:
btw, has anyone ran sw probe on fbsd? last time i heard it requires complete rewrite. unsure. maybe linux compat jail? could also run vm of course. i can't recall ripe providing vm images. but isn't vm like bad idea to test networks. latency. jitter?
also, previously hw probes are like ripe owned and managed propery to avoid measurement skew
what about sw ones? there's no control there. unsure tho how many try to screw with atlas on purpose, be it hw or sw... ----- To unsubscribe from this mailing list or change your subscription options, please visit: https://mailman.ripe.net/mailman3/lists/ripe-atlas.ripe.net/ As we have migrated to Mailman 3, you will need to create an account with the email matching your subscription before you can change your settings. More details at: https://www.ripe.net/membership/mail/mailman-3-migration/
i get about as much pain from soft probes as i do hard ones. e.g. multiple soft probes on bookworm have gone sideways. an example syslog in https://archive.psg.com/250824.a1000004-syslog.gz [ yes, i have reported to atlas engineering ] randy
The USB memory stick original to my probe did not last very long. Neither did a replacement memory stick. So I "borrowed" from my Camera kit -- a CF card to USB adapter and a 16 GB CF, too small to be of use for photography any more. It has been in use this way for about 8 years or so with no outage due to this hardware.  - James R Cutler - 🦉 No AI content 719 Leicester Street, Plymouth, MI 48170-1020 +1 (734) 673-5462 james.cutler@consultant.com
On Aug 24, 2025, at 3:09 PM, Hans Mayer via ripe-atlas <ripe-atlas@ripe.net> wrote:
Hi Robert,
I am using an atlas probe (HW) since more than 7 years and since a while a software probe on a different location too. The good news first: it is an important tool for networking. Many thanks to the team for this environment. The bad news: I had issues with both. The weak point with the HW is the USB flash. But this has nothing to do with the probe itself. These memory sticks are not build to be alive forever. Also the SW died. But not in a way that the process died. The probe was simple offline. So just pinging ( for HW ) or looking if the process is running ( for SW ) is not enough. Even there is a solution. There is an API available to verify if the probe is available for the network. So it makes sense to integrate the test into your monitoring tool ( nagios, checkmk, .... ) what ever you are using just for the seldom case it should break.
Kind regards Hans
--
On 23.08.25 12:46, Richter, Robert via ripe-atlas wrote:
Hello everybody! Currently, I am investigating the possibilities of measurements using RIPE Atlas. Is there information about differences in the measurement results of HW and SW probes? My advisor said that I should rather not use SW probes, but I am not sure what the actual difference is, especially as SW probes often run on better hardware, compared to the HW probes.
Could you point me to some resources on that topic?
Best regards, Robert
----- To unsubscribe from this mailing list or change your subscription options, please visit: https://mailman.ripe.net/mailman3/lists/ripe-atlas.ripe.net/ As we have migrated to Mailman 3, you will need to create an account with the email matching your subscription before you can change your settings. More details at: https://www.ripe.net/membership/mail/mailman-3-migration/
To unsubscribe from this mailing list or change your subscription options, please visit: https://mailman.ripe.net/mailman3/lists/ripe-atlas.ripe.net/ As we have migrated to Mailman 3, you will need to create an account with the email matching your subscription before you can change your settings. More details at: https://www.ripe.net/membership/mail/mailman-3-migration/
participants (8)
-
Ernst J. Oud -
Hans Mayer -
James R Cutler -
Lukas Tribus -
Randy Bush -
Richter, Robert -
Robert Kisteleki -
Sulev-Madis Silber