Simula Research Laboratory /
Center for Resilient Networks and Applications /
NorNet
Homepage of Thomas Dreibholz /
HiPerConTracer Homepage
New release: hipercontracer-1.6.8.
HiPerConTracer is an advanced Ping/Traceroute service. It performs regular Ping and Traceroute measurements over IPv4 and IPv6 among sites. Results are exported into an SQL database. Analysis scripts can then access this data for research on network connectivity and resilience, as well as for visualising the connectivity within the Internet.
The complete BibTeX references in a single file can be found here!
Mazumdar, Somnath and Dreibholz, Thomas: ``Towards a Privacy Preserving Data Flow Control via Packet Header Marking´´ (PDF, 2009 KiB, π¬π§), in Proceedings of the 24th IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing, Data, and Analytics (HPCC), pp. 1509β1516, DOI 10.1109/HPCC-DSS-SmartCity-DependSys57074.2022.00232, ISBN 979-8-3503-1993-4, Chengdu, Sichuan/People's Republic of China, December 18, 2022, [BibTeX, XML].
Keywords: Cloud, Data, Fog, P4, Packets, Privacy, Routing
Abstract: Computing infrastructure is becoming ubiquitous thanks to the advancement in computing and the network domain. Reliable network communication is essential to offer good quality services, but it is not trivial. There are privacy concerns. Metadata may leak user information even if traffic is encrypted. Some countries have data privacy preserving-related regulations, but end-users cannot control through which path, networks, and hardware their data packets should travel. Even worse, the user cannot declare their privacy preferences. This paper presents an approach to tackle such privacy issues through data privacy-aware routing. The user can specify their preferences for packet routing using marking and filtering. Routing can work according to such specifications. It is implemented by P4, allowing a vendor-independent realisation with standard off-the-shelf hardware and open-source software components. We presented the initial experimental results of a proof-of-concept run on a unified cloud/fog research testbed.
URL: https://www.simula.no/file/hpcc2022pdf/download
MD5: e4736c18f80bee8084c75a587f6c7e0a
Mazumdar, Somnath and Dreibholz, Thomas: ``Secure Embedded Living: Towards a Self-contained User Data Preserving Framework´´ (PDF, 336 KiB, π¬π§), in IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 60, pp. 74β80, DOI 10.1109/MCOM.001.2200165, ISSN 0163-6804, November 11, 2022, [BibTeX, XML].
Keywords: IoTs, Cloud, Blockchain, Data, Security, User
Abstract: Smart living represents the hardware-software co-inhabiting with humans for better living standards and improved well-being. Here, hardware monitors human activities (by collecting data) specific to a context. Such data can be processed to offer context-specific valuable insights. Such insights can be used for optimising the well-being, living experience and energy cost of smart homes. This paper proposes a Secure Embedded Living Framework (SELF) that enforces a privacy-preserving data control mechanism by integrating multiple technologies, such as Internet-of-thing, cloud/fog platform, machine learning and blockchain. The primary aim of the SELF is to allow the user to retain more control of its data.
URL: https://www.simula.no/file/commmag2022pdf/download
MD5: aee5a6a9043799f00b9836ce7cafd8d4
Dreibholz, Thomas and Mazumdar, Somnath: ``Find Out: How Do Your Data Packets Travel?´´ (PDF, 7239 KiB, π¬π§), in Proceedings of the 18th IEEE International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM), pp. 359β363, DOI 10.23919/CNSM55787.2022.9965091, ISBN 978-3-903176-51-5, Thessaloniki, Greece, November 1, 2022, [BibTeX, XML].
Keywords: Internet, Connectivity, Routing, Data, Packets, Traffic Paths
Abstract: In today's communication-centric world, users generate and exchange a massive amount of data. The Internet helps user data to travel from one part of the world to another, via a complex set of network systems. These systems are intelligent, heterogeneous, and non-transparent to users. This paper presents an extensive, trace-driven study of user data traffic covering five years of observations, six large ISPs, 22 different autonomous systems, and a total of 12 countries. This work aims to make users aware of how their data travels in the Internet, as the interests of ISPs majorly influence the data traffic path. Although data traffic should prefer to travel through countries that share land borders, we found that the shortest land distance between the two countries does not impact data path selection.
URL: https://www.simula.no/file/cnsm2022pdf/download
MD5: 1a49b8096e6f7d92d50d2ff98836db4c
Dreibholz, Thomas: ``HiPerConTracer - A Versatile Tool for IP Connectivity Tracing in Multi-Path Setups´´ (PDF, 4898 KiB, π¬π§), in Proceedings of the 28th IEEE International Conference on Software, Telecommunications and Computer Networks (SoftCOM), pp. 1β6, DOI 10.23919/SoftCOM50211.2020.9238278, ISBN 978-953-290-099-6, Hvar, Dalmacija/Croatia, September 17, 2020, [BibTeX, XML].
Keywords: HiPerConTracer, Traceroute, Ping, Multi-Path Transport, NorNet, NorNet Core
Abstract: Nowadays, we see a steadily increasing number of Internet devices with connections to multiple networks. For example, every smartphone provides mobile broadband and Wi-Fi connectivity. Multi-path transport protocols, like MPTCP, CMT-SCTP or Multipath-QUIC, allow for utilising all connected networks simultaneously. However, while there is a lot of research on the Transport Layer aspects of multi-path transport, there is not much work on the Network Layer perspective, yet. In this paper, we introduce our Open Source tool HiPerConTracer (High-Performance Connectivity Tracer) for efficient, parallelised, long-term measurements of the path connectivity characteristics among multi-homed Internet systems. HiPerConTracer is now running as a permanent feature in the NorNet Core infrastructure, which is used for research on multi-homed systems, and in particular for research on multi-path transport. Based on the HiPerConTracer data collected in NorNet Core so far, we finally present some interesting results from the analysis of the inter-continental site connectivity between China and Norway in January 2020.
URL: https://www.simula.no/file/softcom2020-hipercontracer-webpdf-0/download
MD5: 676791cf458caa2e9f21688227fc6219
Golkar, Forough; Dreibholz, Thomas and Kvalbein, Amund: ``Measuring and Comparing Internet Path Stability in IPv4 and IPv6´´ (PDF, 436 KiB, π¬π§), in Proceedings of the 5th IEEE International Conference on the Network of the Future (NoF), pp. 1β5, DOI 10.1109/NOF.2014.7119767, ISBN 978-1-4799-7531-0, Paris/France, December 4, 2014, [BibTeX, XML]. Awarded with the Best Paper Award.
Keywords: NorNet Core, Internet, IPv4, IPv6, Path Stability, Resilience, Robustness
Abstract: In just about 4 years, IPv6 will celebrate its 20th anniversary. While the protocol itself is already quite old, its deployment has only recently picked up speed. Not so many Internet service providers offer direct IPv6 connectivity to their customers, yet. Clearly, when IPv6 is available to customers, they expect that IPv6 offers at least the same β or even better β stability of connections in comparison to IPv4. The main goal of this paper is to investigate whether this is true today. In our paper, we present up-to-date measurement results on the stability of IPv4 and IPv6 paths in the real Internet, based on machines that are distributed over a large geographical area, as part of the NorNet Core testbed infrastructure for multi-homed systems. The measurements not only cover high-speed research networks, but also consumer-grade ADSL connections β i.e. the ISP connection types of "normal" end-users β as well as a broad range of different ISPs. The measurements show that IPv6 paths are less stable than corresponding IPv4 paths. We also find that the use of load balancing is more prevalent in IPv6 than in IPv4.
URL: https://www.simula.no/file/simulasimula3048pdf/download
MD5: e94bfd5f13ed1ab81ac86b90fc1bbfe1
Please use the issue tracker at https://github.com/dreibh/hipercontracer/issues to report bugs and issues!
For ready-to-install Ubuntu Linux packages of HiPerConTracer, see Launchpad PPA for Thomas Dreibholz!
sudo apt-add-repository -sy ppa:dreibh/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install hipercontracer
For ready-to-install Fedora Linux packages of HiPerConTracer, see COPR PPA for Thomas Dreibholz!
sudo dnf copr enable -y dreibh/ppa sudo dnf install hipercontracer
For ready-to-install FreeBSD packages of HiPerConTracer, it is included in the ports collection, see Index of /head/benchmarks/hipercontracer/!
pkg install hipercontracer
Alternatively, to compile it from the ports sources:
cd /usr/ports/benchmarks/hipercontracer make make install
HiPerConTracer is released under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL).
Please use the issue tracker at https://github.com/dreibh/hipercontracer/issues to report bugs and issues!
The Git repository of the HiPerConTracer sources can be found at https://github.com/dreibh/hipercontracer:
Issue tracker: https://github.com/dreibh/hipercontracer/issues.
Please submit bug reports, issues, questions, etc. in the issue tracker!
Pull Requests for HiPerConTracer: https://github.com/dreibh/hipercontracer/pulls.
Your contributions to HiPerConTracer are always welcome!
CI build tests of HiPerConTracer: https://github.com/dreibh/hipercontracer/actions.
Coverity Scan analysis of HiPerConTracer: https://scan.coverity.com/projects/dreibh-hipercontracer.
The tarball has been signed with my GnuPG key 21412672518D8B2D1862EFEF5CD5D12AA0877B49. Its authenticity and integrity can be verified by:
gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 21412672518D8B2D1862EFEF5CD5D12AA0877B49 gpg --verify hipercontracer-<VERSION>.tar.xz.asc hipercontracer-<VERSION>.tar.xz
The tarballs have been signed with my GnuPG key 21412672518D8B2D1862EFEF5CD5D12AA0877B49. Its authenticity and integrity can be verified by:
gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 21412672518D8B2D1862EFEF5CD5D12AA0877B49 gpg --verify hipercontracer-<VERSION>.tar.xz.asc hipercontracer-<VERSION>.tar.xz