Subject: [pim] [PIM-PING]: A tool to test the convexity of pim domain.

From: "janardhan kulkarni" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:21:44 +0530

Hi all,

We have a written a simple application which will help to test the convexity
of pim domain. Since we all know, for most of the pim protocols to work
appropriately , pim domain should be complex.  This tool will help to test
whether a multicast data source is reachable through a pim domain and also
whether the source is active.  This we call "pim-ping "since It tests the
whether a multicast source is reachable through pim domain. ( while ping
just tells whether there is a route to the source.)

Apart from this it can also be used for following things:-
a) To test whether RP configuration across the domain is Consistent
b) To trace the multicast data path through a pim domain.
c) And ofcourse,  to tell how much time it needs to establish a SPT in case
of sm or ssm.
    which can be very useful static to have to configure the switch over
policies in case of pim sm.

Implementation is quite simple and takes less than 200 lines of C code.

We think it is a very useful tool for debugging purposes,  just wanted to
know whether this will useful if  published as an IETF draft.

Thanks.
Janardhan.
_______________________________________________
pim mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/pim

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From: Stig Venaas <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:55:50 +0200

janardhan kulkarni wrote:
> Hi all,
>  
> We have a written a simple application which will help to test the
> convexity of pim domain. Since we all know, for most of the pim
> protocols to work appropriately , pim domain should be complex.  This
> tool will help to test whether a multicast data source is reachable
> through a pim domain and also whether the source is active.  This we
> call "pim-ping "since It tests the whether a multicast source is
> reachable through pim domain. ( while ping just tells whether there is a
> route to the source.)
>  
> c) And ofcourse,  to tell how much time it needs to establish a SPT in
> case of sm or ssm.
> We think it is a very useful tool for debugging purposes,  just wanted
> to know whether this will useful if  published as an IETF draft.

Do you have more details? You call it pim-ping, but does it actually
have anything to do with pim, other than verifying that multicast works
and how long it takes before the first packet arrives? You say you can
trace the multicast path through the domain, does that mean that you
require some special router support or do you collect state from routers
using SNMP, or? I would certainly be interested to know the details.

There might be some similarities between your tool and the
ssmping/asmping tools. For info on these, see
http://www.venaas.no/multicast/ssmping/ and also
draft-ietf-mboned-ssmping-00.txt

Stig

>  
> Thanks.
> Janardhan.
>  
>  
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

---

From: Benoît HILT <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:45:50 +0200

Le 19 juin 07 à 11:51, janardhan kulkarni a écrit :

> protocols to work appropriately , pim domain should be complex.   
> This tool will help to test whether a multicast data source is  
> reachable through a pim domain and also whether the source is  
> active.  This we call "pim-ping "since It tests the whether a  
> multicast source is reachable through pim domain. ( while ping just  
> tells whether there is a route to the source.)
>
> c) And ofcourse,  to tell how much time it needs to establish a SPT  
> in case of sm or ssm.
>     which can be very useful static to have to configure the switch  
> over policies in case of pim sm.
>
> We think it is a very useful tool for debugging purposes,  just  
> wanted to know whether this will useful if  published as an IETF  
> draft.
>
> Thanks.
> Janardhan.
>
>

Hi,

your tool seems to be interesting.
When you speak about pim domain, can you explicit it more precisely ?
Does the limitation to pim domain means that you cannot trace a tree  
spanned over several pim domains ?
What happens when your tool reaches a router with a broken tree ?

Can you indicate a link that make your tool available for testing ?

If your tool is specific to pim protocol, what do you think about the  
idea of intergrating some debugging funtionalities directly to the  
pim protocol like our recently proposition (http://www.ietf.org/ 
internet-drafts/draft-hilt-pim-tree-unreachability-00.txt) ?

benoit

Benoît HILT - Dépt. R&T
IUT de Colmar - BP 50568
F-68008 COLMAR Cedex
Tél./Fax. : +33 3 89 20 23 64/84
Mél : benoit.hilt @uha.fr/@calixo.net

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From: "janardhan kulkarni" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:16:02 +0530

Hi all,

I think i made a little mistake by terming it as an application. It is
better termed as feature since,
it requires all the routers to support this.

I will give small detail about how we are going to do this in a day.

Thanks,
Janardhan.

---

From: John Zwiebel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:58:33 -0700

On Jun 19, 2007, at 5:46 AM, janardhan kulkarni wrote:

>
> I think i made a little mistake by terming it as an application. It  
> is better termed as feature since,

Why will this be different from "mrinfo", which also required the  
routers
to support it.  There is a reason people aren't using it.

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From: John Zwiebel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:05:04 -0700

On Jun 19, 2007, at 2:58 PM, John Zwiebel wrote:

>> I think i made a little mistake by terming it as an application.  
>> It is better termed as feature since,

I should have said "mtrace".  Its been so long that I didn't recall  
the name.

---

From: Hitoshi Asaeda <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 10:25:29 +0900 (JST)

> I should have said "mtrace".  Its been so long that I didn't recall  

Just FYI.
We are about to submit a new version of mtrace draft, which supports
both IPv4 and v6 multicast.
The new draft would be based on Bill and Steve's original draft and
ours that I made a presentation at the last MBONED WG meeting.
--
Hitoshi Asaeda