Backbone Monitoring Tools

Wed Mar 29 13:09:54 UTC 2006

On Wed, 29 Mar 2006, Alexei Roudnev wrote:

>
> I use snmpstatd - snmpstat.sf.net .
>

Oooh, looks nice!

>> From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu] On Behalf Of
>> Ashe Canvar

>>  2. actively detect routing changes / failover to redundant paths using
>> traceroutes
>>      i.e. alert if  SFO->CHG->NYC changes to SFO->LXE->HOU->NYC
>>      ( link state protocols suck as far as testing backup paths go)

Ashe,

I've done this using "mon" (http://www.kernel.org/software/mon/). It comes with
two traceroute monitors which remember the past paths and alert when that path
changes. In fact, one of the monitors can even detect load-balanced alternate
paths, e.g. if there are multiple possible intermediate paths during normal
operation.

You'll want to look at the latest 1.1 release from CVS:

     http://www.kernel.org/software/mon/development.html

>> 3. actively transfer a fixed file
>>    i.e. draw a datarate grid between every datacenter and every other
>> datacenter

In fact, I belive people have done precisely this with mon before.
Try asking on the mailing list, I'm quite sure someone will respond.

>> I am in a buy vs. build debate with my boss ;)

Build! I think mon gets you at least 90% to where you want to go.