Do network diagnostic tools need upgrade?

Mon Feb 3 18:05:12 UTC 2014

On Mon, 03 Feb 2014 16:33:34 +0300, Ammar Salih said:

>  I have a question for you, are you happy with the current network
> diagnostic tools, like ping, trace route .. etc, don't you think it's time
> to have an upgraded version of icmp protocol? from my side there is a lot
> that I can NOT do with current tools and protocols, here are few scenarios,
> and I would like to hear yours:

Upgrading ICMP protocol is... challenging.  I wouldn't even bother with
trying to do anything with IPv4.  Might be some options for IPv6, *IF* you
can provide a *specific* proposal that looks worth the added code and
router complexity....

Also, remember that most routers will do packet forwarding in hardware if
they can just suck in bits on one interface and toss them out another - but if
they have to do stuff like create and send an ICMP TTL Exceeded packet,
you end up on the control plane and probably rate-limited.

> applications like (Paping), well it may help if the forward and return path
> of all packets are exactly the same.

That's a routing problem, not an ICMP problem.  As are the remainder of your
examples.
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