NAP/ISP Saturation WAS: Re: Exchanges that matter...

Tue Dec 17 04:05:44 UTC 1996

Interesting.  An ICMP packet dropped when busy.  Well, it seems as
if there is only a hair's difference between when an ICMP packet is
dropped and when an IP packet is dropped.

If you are busy, you are busy, right?  

I know that I was getting zero packet loss for many many basic routes
this time last year that are now losing packets.  I think that a network
is in great shape when the packet loss is at a sheer minimum.  Even one
percent packet loss can be felt as substantially more degraded than 
perfect transport.

Just like ra.net, I use pings to monitor one aspect of overall performance.
Me and ra.net are not alone.  

> >On Sun, 15 Dec 1996, Forrest W. Christian wrote:

> >Many routers drop ICMP packets (ping, traceroute) when busy, or alternate
> >dropping ICMP packets.  I know that this behavior occurs when the packets
> >are directed to the specific router, I am not sure if this every occurs
> >for packets passing through.  The standby tool ping needs a more reliable
> >replacement for testing end to end packet loss.