Hello NANOG list members,
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:
First scenario:
To be able to troubleshoot advanced networks with complex QoS and
policy-based routing configuration, where ping, traceroute and other
network diagnostic tools do not provide accurate readings, for example, you
are troubleshooting a web server with ping, and it looks functioning quite
well (packet loss and round trip time is all good), but web services are
still significantly slow, the fact is icmp and tcp:80 might have different
priorities and bandwidth limits on each router along the path between the
client and the server, in this case, network admins usually use telnet
applications like (Paping), well it may help if the forward and return path
of all packets are exactly the same.
Second scenario:
So another possible scenario is that you need to determine readings for
forward and return paths, TraceRoute for example gives you forward path
only using icmp. But what if you need to troubleshoot a VoIP server for
example, assuming that packets return path might not be the same as forward
path.
Third scenario:
One of the most common problems in networking, is that you don't have
access to all equipment between client and server, but you have to
troubleshoot the path between them and to understand where the problem
exactly is in order to contact the right person without having the
privilege to check the configuration on each router.
Fourth scenario:
Also, with trace route you can't determine the actual path, for example,
the router may direct http traffic to proxy server while leaving other
traffic going through a different hop.