pS-Performance Toolkit: Disk Contents

The main feature is a Web100-enhanced Linux 2.6.27-31 kernel that facilitates the use of several network tools without the need to configure and compile this advanced component. This disk features several performance tools pre-installed and configured to a working state:

Additional supporting components include:

Performance Tools

The following performance tools are packaged on the pS-Performance Toolkit. Each tool comes configured to function with default options, although customization is possible and encouraged. Certain tools have begun the steps necessary to participate in the perfSONAR framework by exporting data and using the information services. We expect many more will follow in the future as adoption continues to grow.

BWCTL

BWCTL is a command line client application and a scheduling and policy daemon that wraps tools such as Iperf, thrulay, and nuttcp. Currently BWCTL wraps these tools by actually executing the respective command line program on the system. The bwctl client application works by invoking instances on the two test endpoint systems. BWCTL will work as a 3-party application. The client can arrange a test between two servers on two different systems. If the local system is intended to be one of the endpoints of the test a local instance is not required, BWCTL will detect that there is no local server and execute the required functionality directly. The daemon manages and schedules the resources of the host on which it runs.

The pS-Performance Toolkit contains a release candidate of version 1.3 of BWCTL. The daemon is started by default with a wide open authentication and resource protection scheme. It is recommended that the deploying party review this to ensure it matches local security policies.

Cacti

Cacti is a complete network graphing solution designed to harness the power of RRDTool's data storage and graphing functionality. Cacti provides a easy to use interface that offers easy ways to pool data sources, manage the data, and graph the results.

The pS-Performance Toolkit contains version 0.8.7b of Cacti. Cacti is fully installed and will start by default. It can be reached by visiting http://HOST_OR_ADDRESS/admin/cacti*. Cacti can be configured to poll a local or remote SNMP enabled network device to gather passive measurements. The SNMP Measurement Archive is configured by default to read the cacti data and deliver this data.

NDT

The Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT) is a client/server program that provides network configuration and performance testing to a user's desktop or laptop computer. The system is composed of a client program (command line or java applet) and a pair of server programs (a web server and a testing/analysis engine). Both command line and web-based clients communicate with a Web100-enhanced server to perform these diagnostic functions. Multi-level results allow novice and expert users to view and understand the test results.

The pS-Performance Toolkit contains version of 3.4.4a NDT. All installation, including integration of the Web100 enabled linux kernel, is complete and operational as the disk comes online. Minor configuration is necessary, but is performed as a part of the general configuration steps.

NPAD

The NPAD diagnostic server, Pathdiag, is designed to easily and accurately diagnose problems in the last-mile network and end-systems that are the most common causes of all severe performance degradation over long end-to-end paths. The overall goal is to make the test procedures easy enough and the report it generates clear enough to be suitable for end-users who are not networking experts.

The pS-Performance Toolkit contains version of 1.5.4 NPAD. All installation, including integration of the Web100 enabled linux kernel, is complete and operational as the disk comes online. Minor configuration is necessary, but is performed as a part of the general configuration steps.

OWAMP

OWAMP is a command line client application and a policy daemon used to determine one way latencies between hosts. It is an implementation of the OWAMP protocol as defined by http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4656.txt.

With roundtrip-based measurements, it is hard to isolate the direction in which congestion is experienced. One-way measurements solve this problem and make the direction of congestion immediately apparent. Since traffic can be asymmetric at many sites that are primarily producers or consumers of data, this allows for more informative measurements. One-way measurements allow the user to better isolate the effects of specific parts of a network on the treatment of traffic.

The pS-Performance Toolkit contains version 3.2rc2 of OWAMP. The daemon is started by default with a wide open authentication and resource protection scheme. It is recommended that the deploying party review this to ensure it matches local security policies.

Reverse Traceroute and Ping

Reverse Traceroute and Ping are tools that enable initiating a traceroute from your pS Performance Toolkit server to their browser without requiring an account at your site.

perfSONAR PS Services

perfSONAR-PS is a set of independent software services that implement the perfSONAR protocols for network performance monitoring. perfSONAR-PS services are designed to be compatible with all other perfSONAR software that implements the perfSONAR protocols. perfSONAR-PS is able to federate between deployments, particularly those that span multiple domains, making the job of solving end-to-end performance problems on paths crossing several networks much easier to address.

The perfSONAR-PS services provide web services-based interfaces into already deployed network monitoring infrastructures and act as an intermediate layer, between the performance measurement tools and the diagnostic or visualization applications. The targeted audience for these services is network Network Operation Centers (NOCs) at Universities and Regional networks, however these services are broadly useful to the general public at large.

The perfSONAR-PS software suite is developed entirely in the Perl programming language, taking full advantage of numerous language features and benefits including the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) distribution system. This software manager makes perfSONAR-PS the ideal choice for integration into typical NOC environments.

The following perfSONAR-PS services are included in the pS-Performance Toolkit:

Lookup Service

The perfSONAR-PS Lookup Service (LS) addresses the always challenging problem of resource registration and discovery for the perfSONAR framework. Service instances that manage datasets are only useful when they can be contacted by consumers. Consumers can only function when there is data available. To manage these problems in a dynamic environment such as perfSONAR, it is necessary to register, maintain, and query for the services that may contain interesting data.

The advent of the perfSONAR Global Lookup Service (gLS) now delivers a world wide view of all available perfSONAR and selected performance tools. Each LS instance is able to take an inventory of locally registered resources and share these with a well established infrastructure of globally deployed gLS services. Through the use of established APIs service and client applications alike can gain access to this powerful information source.

The pS-Performance Toolkit contains a version of this software that starts up on disk boot.

PingER Measurement Archive and Measurement Point

The PingER service is an evolution of the PingER project with more than 10 years experience in collecting and analyzing network performance across the world. The perfSONAR-PS PingER service is composed of both a storage backend (Measurement Archive) and measurement frontend (Measurement Point) to conduct and store ping measurements and to make available such data for consumption by interested parties. Network characteristics supported include availability, latency and jitter, which provide a broad spectrum of determining end-to-end network performance.

The pS-Performance Toolkit contains a version of this software that starts up on disk boot.

perfSONAR BUOY Measurement Archive

The perfSONAR-BUOY Measurement Archive service (pSB MA) exposes active measurement data, making the results available through perfSONAR web services interfaces. All performance tests are performed via the BWCTL tool (throughput measurements) or the OWAMP tool (one way delay) and currently consist of regularly-scheduled tests to a configurable list of source and destination hosts.

Data collected is stored in a MySQL database. Active measurements between known hosts are particularly valuable when assuring connectivity, availability, and quality of the network. perfSONAR-BUOY allows for the easy configuration of a "mesh" of tests to hosts equipped with BWCTL or OWAMP. Based on a configurable schedule, the tests will be conducted autonomously and stored for consumption via the perfSONAR-BUOY interface as well as presentation through included web scripts. Using the same XML protocols as the the other perfSONAR services, perfSONAR-BUOY provides uncomplicated access methods to retrieve the data in an unambiguous manner, thus eliminating the mystery associated with the backend storage.

The pS-Performance Toolkit contains a version of this software that starts up on disk boot. Additional configuration is provided via the Console Configuration step.

SNMP Measurement Archive

The perfSONAR-PS SNMP based Measurement Archive (SNMP MA) is able to expose data collected via variables from the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) protocol found on networked devices and stored in Round Robin Databases (RRD) archives. The measurements are collected through external means, normally through software such as MRTG, Cacti, or Cricket, and is commonly stored in RRD archives. A common way to diagnose network problems is to gain external access to commonly requested data items (such as interface utilization, errors, discards, etc.) remains challenging due to physical and political boundaries. The purpose of the SNMP MA is to deliver these items transparently and securely.

The pS-Performance Toolkit contains a version of this software that starts up on disk boot.

Supporting Software

The following extra software packages are installed on the pS-Performance Toolkit to aid the performance tools in the performance of their duties. Each piece of software named below is configured in a default manner to function when the disk starts, but interested parties may take additional steps to secure the disk further through additional configuration (beyond the scope of this document).

Apache2

Apache web server, version 2, is featured on this disk for use with the various GUIs and administrative tools. Apache has been configured with several major modules (including PHP, Perl, and MySQL) and matches the default upstream Knoppix version. By default all traffic will be passed over https (e.g. SSL), and traffic meant for http will be redirected.

Users may control apache via the /etc/init.d/apache2 interface.

K Desktop Environment

The K Desktop Environment (KDE) is included as the default XWindows environment. There are many applications included by default including web browsers, and graphical interfaces to certain configuration tools. Users more comfortable with this environment when compared to a console should run startx to enable XWindows.

MySQL

MySQL, an open source relational database.

NTP

NTP is a protocol designed to synchronize the clocks of computers over a network. NTP version 3 is an internet draft standard, formalized in RFC 1305. NTP version 4 is a significant revision of the NTP standard, and is the current development version, but has not been formalized in an RFC. Simple NTP (SNTP) version 4 is described in RFC 2030.

The pS-Performance Toolkit comes pre-loaded with several NTP servers, and users may adjust which servers their specific disk uses. Do note that a sane configuration of NTP consists of 4 to 5 servers geographically close to the deployment location.

Oracle DB XML

Oracle Berkeley DB XML is an open source, embeddable XML database with XQuery-based access to documents stored in containers and indexed based on their content. Oracle Berkeley DB XML is built on top of Oracle Berkeley DB and inherits its rich features and attributes. Like Oracle Berkeley DB, it runs in process with the application with no need for human administration. Oracle Berkeley DB XML adds a document parser, XML indexer and XQuery engine on top of Oracle Berkeley DB to enable the fastest, most efficient retrieval of data.

Version 2.3.11 of this software comes pre-loaded, but does not need to be started (it functions more as a library than an executable).

NOTE: The pS-Performance Toolkit disk should automatically find and mount USB drives when they are installed and clean up when they are removed.  Unfortunately, we have not figured out the steps necessary to accomplish this task yet.  Anyone with experience should feel free to provide us with the steps necessary so they can be incorporated into the next release of this CD-ROM.

For more details about the BWCTL, NDT, OWAMP, and other perfSONAR tools and services, please visit the Internet2 Performance Initiative web site http://www.internet2.edu/performance.  For more details about the NPAD tool visit the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center (PSC) http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/pathdiag/ web page.
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