[32577] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Traceroute versus other performance measurement
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Marshall Eubanks)
Wed Nov 29 13:04:12 2000
Message-ID: <3A25439B.C6315A9D@21rst-century.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 12:57:47 -0500
From: Marshall Eubanks <tme@21rst-century.com>
Reply-To: tme@21rst-century.com
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To: Mark Borchers <mborchers@splitrock.net>
Cc: "'nanog@merit.edu'" <nanog@merit.edu>
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Mark Borchers wrote:
> Presumably you're asking if it's a good tool to measure
> *available* bandwidth or lack thereof, i.e. congestion and
> its byproducts of packet loss and increased latency.
>
> No, it isn't!
>
> - Congestion resulting from asymmetric paths can be misinterpreted
> through traceroute.
>
> - Cases where ICMP performance with respect to the routers
> themselves is significantly lower than throughput of
> production traffic will often skew results.
>
> Having said that, where traceroutes suggest a POSSIBLE problem
> on my own network, I'd check further. However, I would never
> ask the operator of another network to troubleshoot solely on
> the basis of traceroute output.
>
>
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Paul Bradford [mailto:paul@adelphia.net]
> > > Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 9:08 AM
> > > To: nanog@merit.edu
> > > Subject: Traceroute versus other performance measurement
> > >
> > > I need help with a reality/sanity check. Traceroute is a
> > > good tool for
> > > checking for routing type problems (loops). Does anyone feel
> > > it's a good tool
> > > to use for testing "bandwidth"....
> >
Also, on some routers, traceroute requires going through the "slow path" (i.e., the
router CPU), and show delays much larger than actual operational packets will encounter.
--
Regards
Marshall Eubanks
T.M. Eubanks
Multicast Technologies, Inc
10301 Democracy Lane, Suite 410
Fairfax, Virginia 22030
Phone : 703-293-9624
Fax : 703-293-9609
e-mail : tme@on-the-i.com tme@multicasttech.com
http://www.on-the-i.com http://www.buzzwaves.com
