[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       tru64-unix-managers
Subject:    SUMMARY: Network/packet analyser tool
From:       Julyan Cartwright <julyan () hp1 ! uib ! es>
Date:       1995-09-30 19:32:32
[Download RAW message or body]

Return-path: <alpha-osf-managers-relay@sws1.ctd.ornl.gov>
Received: from sws1.CTD.ORNL.GOV by SLUVCA.SLU.EDU (PMDF V5.0-4 #5070)
 id <01HVW0EH337K8Y5JR0@SLUVCA.SLU.EDU> for ALPHAOSF@SLUAVA.SLU.EDU; Sat,
 30 Sep 1995 13:32:20 -0600 (CST)
Received: (from daemon@localhost) by sws1.CTD.ORNL.GOV (8.6.10/8.6.10)
 id HAA16464 for aomaa; Fri, 29 Sep 1995 07:02:38 -0400
Received: from oaunx1.ctd.ornl.GOV (oaunx1.ctd.ornl.gov [128.219.128.17])
 by sws1.CTD.ORNL.GOV (8.6.10/8.6.10) with ESMTP id HAA16408 for
 <alpha-osf-managers@sws1.ctd.ornl.gov>; Fri, 29 Sep 1995 07:01:46 -0400
Received: from avb.slu.edu by oaunx1.ctd.ornl.GOV (8.6.10/3.0-C)
 id HAA19042; Fri, 29 Sep 1995 07:01:45 -0400
Received: from DECNET-MAIL (SYSTEM@AVB) by SLUVCA.SLU.EDU (PMDF V5.0-4 #5070)
 id <01HVU2ESSVOWA3CHDX@SLUVCA.SLU.EDU> for alpha-osf-managers@ornl.gov; Fri,
 29 Sep 1995 04:08:22 -0600 (CST)
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 04:08:21 -0600 (CST)
From: Julyan Cartwright <julyan@hp1.uib.es>
Subject: SUMMARY: Network/packet analyser tool
Sender: alpha-osf-managers-relay@sws1.ctd.ornl.gov
To: alpha-osf-managers@ornl.gov
Reply-to: Julyan Cartwright <julyan@hp1.uib.es>
Message-id: <01HVU2ETCFS2A3CHDX@SLUAVA.SLU.EDU>
Organization: SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY  St. Louis, MO
X-VMS-To: IN%"alpha-osf-managers@ornl.gov"
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Followup-to: poster

Return-path: <alpha-osf-managers-relay@sws1.ctd.ornl.gov>
Received: from sws1.CTD.ORNL.GOV by SLUVCA.SLU.EDU (PMDF V5.0-4 #5070)
 id <01HVTZI897Z48Y56IA@SLUVCA.SLU.EDU> for ALPHAOSF@SLUAVA.SLU.EDU; Fri,
 29 Sep 1995 03:01:50 -0600 (CST)
Received: (from daemon@localhost) by sws1.CTD.ORNL.GOV (8.6.10/8.6.10)
 id HAA27718 for aomaa; Thu, 28 Sep 1995 07:09:25 -0400
Received: from oaunx1.ctd.ornl.GOV (oaunx1.ctd.ornl.gov [128.219.128.17])
 by sws1.CTD.ORNL.GOV (8.6.10/8.6.10) with ESMTP id HAA27706 for
 <alpha-osf-managers@sws1.ctd.ornl.gov>; Thu, 28 Sep 1995 07:09:22 -0400
Received: from hp1.uib.es by oaunx1.ctd.ornl.GOV (8.6.10/3.0-C)
 id HAA16025; Thu, 28 Sep 1995 07:09:10 -0400
Received: by hp1.uib.es (1.37.109.4/16.2) id AA03929; Thu,
 28 Sep 1995 12:08:32 +0100
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 1995 12:08:32 +0100 (MET)
From: Julyan Cartwright <julyan@hp1.uib.es>
Subject: SUMMARY: Network/packet analyser tool
Sender: alpha-osf-managers-relay@sws1.ctd.ornl.gov
To: alpha-osf-managers@ornl.gov (DEC Alpha mailing list)
Reply-to: Julyan Cartwright <julyan@hp1.uib.es>
Message-id: <199509281109.HAA16025@oaunx1.ctd.ornl.GOV>
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85]
Followup-to: poster

Hi, last week I asked:
> 
> We're having problems with poor network performance. What programs are
> out there to check out network performance? I'm thinking of something
> that would tell me what all the packets are; that sort of thing. I'll
> summarize, of course. Thanks,
>       Julyan
I sent this question to both the DEC Alpha and the HP managers' lists,
since here we have both these machines. I'm also sending the same summary 
to both lists, since I think a lot people are in the same position as we are
of having several different hardware platforms to run diagnostic tools on,
and as you will see, you have a lot more options to choose from if you can 
pick your hardware...
I got replies from:
"Tor Sigurdsson" <ts@os.is>
nicolis@celfi.phys.univ-tours.fr
Arley Carter <ac@hawk.twinds.com>
Selden E Ball Jr <SEB@LNS62.LNS.CORNELL.EDU>
"Tim W. Janes" <janes@signal.dra.hmg.gb>
Mark Bentkower <markb@best.com>
sanghvi@proto.wilm.ge.com (arun sanghvi)
Arnaud Valeix <fnet@ifh.sncf.fr>
"jprakashb" <jprakashb@inf.com>
Peter Marquardt <wwwutz@rag100.RZ-Berlin.MPG.DE>
Harald Lundberg <hl@tekla.fi>
koenigs@rfhds1002.fh.uni-regensburg.de (Christian Koenigseder)
mueller@vits02.dofn.de| (Norbert M\|ller)
jst9@netcom.com (Joseph S. Taylor)
Bill Hassell <blh@hpuerca.atl.hp.com>
Johan Larsson <100727.1316@compuserve.com>
...thanks, folks.

I'll try to distill their wisdom using the most relevent quotes:

1) Stuff that comes with the OS:

   Alpha: (configure the kernel with the PACKFILTER option)
   tcpdump nfswatch

   HP: 
   nettl netfmt

   Sun:
   "If you have access to a sun running solaris 2.x you could use "snoop",
   which is in the standard distribution."

I didn't find any of these programs adequate for what I needed.

2) Stuff you can buy:

   "Believe it or not, HP makes 2 of the top 3 products for network
   analysis. HP NetMetrix is a great analyzing tool, it breaks down
   the packets by type and shows wihich individual conversations 
   are consuming the most bandwidth. It also lets you
   look at the physical and transport layers individually.
   HP also makes OpenView, which is an SNMP manager and good
   at monitoring for specific traps and acting on them when they 
   occur.
   Finally, Network General makes the "sniffer" tool
   which looks at individual packets down to the headers level."

   "There are quite a lot of commercial software like synoptic's optivity 
   and IBM's netview which is worth trying out."

I didn't investigate this route, since being a university, we don't have
money to spend on this sort of software :-(.

3) Free stuff you can get off the Net:

   "TTCP is a benchmarking tool for determining TCP and UDP performance 
   between 2 systems.
   The program was created at the US Army Ballistics Research Lab (BRL)
   and is in the public domain. Feel free to distribute this program
   but please do leave the credit notices in the source and man page intact."

   "The best general purpose tool I have found is ethld104.zip that
   unfortunately runs on a PC - but tracks down who and what is using the
   bandwidth very easily.  Well worth grabbing an old 386 machines that
   would have been thrown out and dedicating it to network trouble
   shooting."

   "The program "etherman" is a fantastic tool with which you can monitor which
   computers are communicating together, with an fantastic X-Window 
   environment"

I liked the sound of this last program, so I got a copy off the Net. It's
available from these two places at least:
  ftp://ftp.cs.curtin.edu.au/pub/netman
  ftp://ftp.informatik.hu-berlin.de/pub/unix/net/netman
You will find there binaries for Dec, SGI, and Sun (no HP yet...)

I got the DEC Alpha binary for etherman and had it working in a few minutes. 
It is a very nice program that shows the high standards free software can 
attain - I recommend it highly. For you HP-only people, I don't know if/when 
an HP version will appear - somebody should definitely port it.

So what was my network problem, you ask... It is simply that we have too many
machines on the same segment connected by thinwire cable, and the capacity
is not sufficient for the peak traffic when all the machines are in use and
several people are running programs with graphics interfaces, compiling,
writing data, and generally creating traffic. This was very quickly spotted 
with the graphical interface of etherman, which shows the traffic between
different machines as a chart with lines of thickness varying with the traffic.
The colour of the line represents the type of traffic - very useful if like us
you have IP, DecNET, Appletalk, and PC protocols all sharing the same ethernet.

	Julyan
--
Julyan Cartwright                      Email    julyan@hp1.uib.es
Departament de Fisica                  NeXTmail julyan@obelix.uib.es
Universitat de les Illes Balears       WWW      http://formentor.uib.es/~julyan
07071 Palma de Mallorca, Spain         Tel/Fax  (+34 71) 173230 / 173426

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]