Page History

Project Description

  PingER SmokePing Integration aims at using Smokepings's rrd tool to visually display pingER's data  in the form of graphs. The previous graphs that pingER are using are thee GNU graphs at Fermi lab (you can get to them by clicking on Remote host in pingtable.pl) . These  graphs shows the RTTs (on the left hand scale) and Losses (on the right hand scale). These graphs does not show any indication of jitter. The current implementation using RRD tool is a standard and more flexible way of doing it. It shows the losses by color and jitter by smoke in addition to Round trip time.

Background

The pingER data files are located at /nfs/slac/g/net/pinger/pingerdata/hep/data/ Here is a format of a sample pingER file

143.108.30.100 143.108.30.100 www.al.sp.gov.br 200.144.27.132 1000 10491552 10 10 10 32 32 33 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 33 33 32 32 32 32 32 32 33 33
143.108.30.100 143.108.30.100 www.al.sp.gov.br 200.144.27.132 1000 10491552 10 10 10 31 32 37 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 33 32 32 31 32 32 32 32 32 37
143.108.30.100 143.108.30.100 enterprise.uspnet.usp.br 143.107.151.2 1000 10491552 10 10 10 5 6 7 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 7 5 6 6 6 6 7 6 6 6
143.108.30.100 143.108.30.100 enterprise.uspnet.usp.br 143.107.151.2 1000 10491552 10 10 10 5 7 20 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 5 5 7 7 7 5 6 20 6
143.108.30.100 143.108.30.100 stromboli.incor.usp.br 200.9.95.6 1000 10491552 10 10 10 7 7 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 7 7 7 7 7 10 7 9 9
143.108.30.100 143.108.30.100 stromboli.incor.usp.br 200.9.95.6 1000 10491552 10 10 10 7 8 20 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 8 7 7 7 7 7 7 8 7
143.108.30.100 143.108.30.100 border2-e04-core.cas.ansp.br 143.106.99.74 1000 10491552 10 10 10 5 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 6 5 6 5 6 6 5 5 5 5
143.108.30.100 143.108.30.100 border2-e04-core.cas.ansp.br 143.106.99.74 1000 10491552 10 10 10 5 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 6 5 5 5 6 5 6 5 6 5

RRD Format

 The RRD files can be found at /nfs/slac/g/net/pinger/pingerdata/hep/RRDCache 

 The three main functions used are: 

  RRDs::create

  RRDs::update 

  RRDs::graph

 Command line usage

rrdtool create sss.rrd --start 1174347943 --step 1800 DS:uptime:GAUGE:3600:0:UDS:loss:GAUGE:3600:0:UDS:median:GAUGE:3600:0:
UDS:ping1:GAUGE:3600:0:UDS:ping2:GAUGE:3600:0:UDS:ping3:GAUGE:3600:0:UDS:ping4:GAUGE:3600:0:UDS:ping5:GAUGE:3600:0:UDS:ping6
:GAUGE:3600:0:UDS:ping7:GAUGE:3600:0:UDS:ping8:GAUGE:3600:0:UDS:ping9:GAUGE:3600:0:UDS:ping10:GAUGE:3600:0:URRA:AVERAGE:
0.5:1:5760

rrdtool update sss.rrd 1174477592 : NaN:0:0.0251:0.0248:0.0249:0.025:0.025:0.0251:0.0251:0.0251:0.0252:0.0254:0.026

Architecture

The scripts that produce the Pinger data files and the RRD files are placed at : /afs/slac.stanford.edu/package/pinger/smokeping (Added by AmberZeb 03/07/2012)

The scripts that produce the RRDs are located in /afs/slac/g/scs/net/netmon/pinger_smokeping/bin.
The CGI scripts are located in /afs/slac/g/www/cgi-wrap-bin/net/shahryar/smokeping.

...

Package Description

SelectSrcDest.pm

This is the Perl module that acts as a daemon process and runs as a cron every night, to call the main conversion module, which is the PingERtoSmokeping.pm. As it traverses the PingER data and converts it into SmokePing format .rrd files using the PingERtoSmokeping.pm, it also enters information into the srcdest.txt file of the data converted. This information includes the name of monitoring sites and under the name of each monitoring site is listed the identification keys corresponding each monitoring site. The identification key consists of the following information with an underscore between each piece of information:

• The monitoring site host name

• The remote site host name
• Number of bytes per ping
• Number of pings sent to remote host

An example of information contained in the srcdest.txt file is:

monitor.niit.edu.pk
monitor.niit.edu.pk_monalisa.niit.edu.pk_1000_10
monitor.niit.edu.pk_monalisa.niit.edu.pk_100_10
monitor.niit.edu.pk_www.niit.edu.pk_1000_10
****

The four stars separate the information of one monitoring site from the other. The benefit of this srcdest.txt file is that a list of keys against which the converted data is available, is formed so that when a user clicks on one item in the list the graph.cgi can plot the converted data against the key. Conversely if the file was not there, and the user entered his choice of monitoring site, remote site, ping packet site, number of ping packets hoping that the data for this combination is present, he might be  wrong. It's easy for the user to select what exists, then to let him guess by allowing him to make the selection.

PingERtoSmokeping.pm 

This is the main conversion code, which is called by the daemon process SrcDest.pm daily to convert the data for the last 120 days from that date. After an RRD file has been formed for a single source and destination pair (and number of bytes per ping and pings per remote site), then next day only one day's data will be appended at the end of the file and the data for the first day removed. In this way there will always be data in the file for the "last" 120 days. It is necessary to mention that PingER files within a particular folder consist of all the data for a source (one folder for each source is there).

CGI Modules 

There are three CGI modules. 

Form.cgi 

Displays the data in srcdest.txt file to the user, so that the user can make his selection

graph.cgi 

Generates graphs using the rrd graph method. 

 saveimage.cgi

It is called from graph.cgi and displays the contents of the image to the user. 

Detailed description can be found at http://maggie.niit.edu.pk/newwebsite/federation_projectdesc2.html

Installation

SelectConvSrcDest1.pm

• Modify the following path to point to the bin directory containing the PingERtoSmokeping.pm

  Code Block
  use lib qw(/home/bin);

• Change following paths according to local system. Point this path to the pinger data files directory

  Code Block
  my $some_dir="/home/pinger/pingerdata/hep/data";

• Point this path to the directory SRCDEST_FILE

  Code Block
  my $srcdest="/home/SRCDEST_FILE";

PingERtoSmokeping.pm

• When installing PingERtoSmokeping, this file has to be adjusted to fit your local system. Two paths have to be changed. These path is located at the begining of PingERtoSmokeping:The $main_path should point to the source folder which contains the PingER files

• Code Block
  my $main_path='/home/PingER_Data_Storage/';

• The $pathofrrdcache should point to the folder RRDCache, which will contain the RRDs

  Code Block
  my $pathofrrdcache="/home/RRDCache"; 

  OtherParams2.cgi
• Change the mainpath to point to the srcdest.txt file

  Code Block
  my $mainpath="/home/asma/SRCDEST_FILE/srcdest.txt";

• Change this path to point to the folder contaning the pinger.new.cf file:

  Code Block
  $base_dir="/home/asma/pinger";

  mon-lib

• Add following lines to the current mon-lib, rigth above the if ($type =~ /HISTO/) or use the mon-lib file available with the distribution

  Code Block
  if ($type =\~ /SMOKE/) { $site = "$table\[$i\]\[$nodecolumn-5\]"; if($FORM{'by'}=~/node/) {$more = "&by=node";} if($FORM{'by'}=~/site/) {$more = "&by=site";} $label = ""; $min = ""; $max=""; $data = ""; }

  pingtable.pl
• Add the following line into pingtable.pl

  Code Block
  $config{URLCOLUMN0} = "SMOKE http://203.99.50.206/cgi-bin/asma/OtherParams2.cgi?src_regexp= ";

• This is to be added above the following line:

  Code Block
  $config{URLCOLUMN1} = "COLLECTION http://www.hep.net/cgi-bin/graph_pings.pl?src_regexp= ";

  Graph.cgi
• Change the following path to point to 'rrdtool' installation 

  Code Block
  use lib qw( /usr/local/rrdtool-1.2.12/lib/perl );

• Change following link(present on line 36,242) to point to installation of Graph.cgi:

  Code Block
  http://www.<path-of-server>.com/cgi-bin/graph.cgi

• also modify the following relative path to GraphCache from folder containg Graph.cgi

  Code Block
  my $imgsrc='../GraphCache'; It is used in: line (IMG SRC=\'$imgsrc/$destlink1.png\') And line (IMG SRC=\'$imgsrc/$destlink1"."_mini.png\')

Deployment of PingertoSmokePing

Prerequisite:

Depends on rrdtool version 1.2.12 or newer version of it. Therefore it must be installed. The RRD tool is already installed on PingER machine.

Security Checks

 The perl taint option -T is used in order to taint the input which the cgi will get from the user also "strict" is used.

CGI Scripts

Graph.cgi

Configuration Steps:

• I changed the following path to point to 'rrdtool' installation. The path should go up to the 'perl' directory as follows:

use lib "/afs/slac.stanford.edu/package/netmon/rrdtool/lib/perl/5.8.8";
use lib "/afs/slac.stanford.edu/package/netmon/rrdtool/lib/perl/5.8.8/i386_linux24";

The problem I faced with this is that it was unable to link the dynamic library (.so) file at the run time which I ran it from Flora but when I ran it from 

PingER it worked fine. The problem was due to the fact that Flora is a 64 bit machine.

• I changed following link(present on line 58,252) to point to installation of Graph.cgi i.e http://www-dev.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-wrap/smokeping_graph.cgi
• I changed the following relative path to GraphCache from folder containing Graph.cgi:

my $imgsrc="$HOME/pinger_smokeping/html/GraphCache where $HOME is my home directory where the project is placed.

SaveImage.cgi

* *I have written saveimage.cgi which is called from graph.cgi and it prints the image data to the browser. The image is created temporarily and is deleted after it is show to the user.

The image is created in /tmp/ directory

Form.cgi

Displays the SourceSite_DestinationSite_PacketsSize_NumberOfPings(maximum) RRDs(data) available for the monitoring site or node slected from pingtable.pl by user.

Configuration Steps:

• I changed the mainpath to point to the srcdest.txt file:

  Code Block
  my $mainpath="$HOME/pinger_smokeping/SRCDEST_FILE/srcdest.txt";

where $HOME is  home directory where the project is placed.

• I changed this path to point to the folder contaning the pinger.new.cf file: my $base_dir="$HOME/pinger_smokeping";
• I also had to put <HTML> nad <BODY> tags to see the output correctly in the browser which otherwise gave error. This script takes two parameters as

1. src_regexp (Monitoring Site)
2. by site | node

Pingtable.pl

• I used the version provided with the distribution. I added this link to form.cgi Line 504:

$config
{URLCOLUMN0}

= "SMOKE [http://www-dev.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-wrap/smokeping_form.cgi?src_regexp=]";

• I also had to chage require statement at line 96 to point it to new pinger.new.cf

require "$base_dir/pinger.new.cf";

where

$base_dir="/afs/slac/u/sg/shahryar/pinger_smokeping";

• Also the path of mon-lib.pl was changed in pinger.new.cf to point to the new mon-lib.pl 

These three scripts are deployed at Test server (/afs/slac.stanford.edu/g/www/cgi-wrap-bin/net/shahryar)

which I guess is not accessable from outside world. These scripts are deployed at:

http://www-dev.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-wrap/pingtable_test.pl

http://www-dev.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-wrap/smokeping_form.cgi

MAGGIE - SEECS - Smokeping.

Performance Analysis

 In order to get  list of unique Source Destination pairs (links) SelectSrcDest1.pm used to traverses through all the raw pinger files for the last 120 days and generated the list. This was extremely expensive in terms  of time consumed so we needed to reduce this. This was reduced to one day which made the code 120 times more faster.

I used the Benchmark library and applied it on create_File function. Here is the result of creating 10 RRDs on nfs space

CreateRRD took:38 wallclock secs (19.76 usr  3.99 sys \+  2.57 cusr  0.82 csys = 27.14 CPU)
CreateRRD took:38 wallclock secs (20.06 usr  3.39 sys \+  2.46 cusr  0.84 csys = 26.75 CPU)
CreateRRD took:67 wallclock secs (21.25 usr  9.75 sys \+  2.49 cusr  1.03 csys = 34.52 CPU)
CreateRRD took:66 wallclock secs (21.19 usr  9.06 sys \+  2.73 cusr  0.90 csys = 33.88 CPU)
CreateRRD took:68 wallclock secs (20.97 usr  9.47 sys \+  2.78 cusr  0.74 csys = 33.96 CPU)
CreateRRD took:68 wallclock secs (20.80 usr  9.40 sys \+  2.44 cusr  0.96 csys = 33.60 CPU)
CreateRRD took:23 wallclock secs (19.19 usr  0.86 sys \+  2.27 cusr  0.91 csys = 23.23 CPU)
CreateRRD took:23 wallclock secs (19.09 usr  1.13 sys \+  2.55 cusr  0.92 csys = 23.69 CPU)
CreateRRD took:66 wallclock secs (21.13 usr  8.45 sys \+  2.53 cusr  0.93 csys = 33.04 CPU)
CreateRRD took:67 wallclock secs (21.24 usr  9.61 sys \+  2.23 cusr  0.91 csys = 33.99 CPU)

    I created the same 10 RRD files on local disk, clearly its less expensive to write to local disk.

CreateRRD took:22 wallclock secs (19.75 usr  0.79 sys \+  2.60 cusr  0.75 csys = 23.89 CPU)
CreateRRD took:21 wallclock secs (19.66 usr  0.85 sys \+  2.70 cusr  0.76 csys = 23.97 CPU)
CreateRRD took:24 wallclock secs (20.49 usr  1.44 sys \+  2.49 cusr  0.83 csys = 25.25 CPU)
CreateRRD took:23 wallclock secs (20.77 usr  1.11 sys \+  2.53 cusr  0.88 csys = 25.29 CPU)
CreateRRD took:23 wallclock secs (20.88 usr  1.26 sys \+  2.40 cusr  0.90 csys = 25.44 CPU)
CreateRRD took:24 wallclock secs (20.91 usr  1.06 sys \+  2.39 cusr  0.96 csys = 25.32 CPU)
CreateRRD took:21 wallclock secs (19.11 usr  0.50 sys \+  2.42 cusr  0.97 csys = 23.00 CPU)
CreateRRD took:21 wallclock secs (19.13 usr  0.62 sys \+  2.58 cusr  1.02 csys = 23.35 CPU)
CreateRRD took:23 wallclock secs (20.77 usr  1.12 sys \+  2.56 cusr  0.82 csys = 25.27 CPU)
CreateRRD took:23 wallclock secs (20.79 usr  1.12 sys \+  2.36 cusr  0.87 csys = 25.14 CPU) 

 The update function takes very little time as compared to create function.  Here is the data for the update function for the same three RRDs

CreateRRD took: 4 wallclock secs ( 3.56 usr  0.05 sys \+  0.43 cusr  0.05 csys =  4.09 CPU)
CreateRRD took: 3 wallclock secs ( 3.55 usr  0.04 sys \+  0.44 cusr  0.01 csys =  4.04 CPU)
CreateRRD took: 4 wallclock secs ( 3.57 usr  0.07 sys \+  0.54 cusr  0.09 csys =  4.27 CPU)

The code created new RRD files based on unique source, destination and number of packets sent. Since the number of packets sent is variable for each day, it created a new RRD file each day which is very expensive. An average of 100 additional RRDs were created every day which costs 10 hours time to run. I have set the value of the number of packets sent to 10, so now  only the previous RRDs will be updated and no new RRD will be created. So this will cause the script to run much faster( will takes on average 10 hours less to run daily).

On a pinger machine with 2 X 2.00 GHZ processors it takes 95 secs to create a new rrd file and few seconds to update. Total files to be created/updated are 630. So, for the first time a rough estimate is 16.25 hrs to complete the jobhttp://www-dev.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-wrap/smokeping_graph.cgi( The perl taint option -t was removed in order to make it work otherwise it gave Internal server Error)

Cron Jobs

I have run SelectSrcDest1.pm as a cron job which is supposed to run every 24 hours to generate the rrd files for unique source destination pairs. The cron job is set as a TrsCron tab and is supposed to run at 12:00 am midnight on tersk08 machine.

Example 

 Here is an example of a congested link in China  (www.hz.zj.cn). You can clearly see the day night effect here and huge losses. In first graph shows the data for the last two days in this case. (By default it shows the last 120 days and can be changed by selecting the date). The second one shows the data for the last 10 days and the third one shows the data for the last 30 days. Image Added

Interpreting the Graph

Smoke colors