[Fwd: Napster at MSU?]
Jason Justman
justmanj@pilot.msu.edu
Wed, 01 Mar 2000 18:41:36 -0500
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Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 18:40:55 -0500
From: Jason Justman <justmanj@pilot.msu.edu>
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To: Jeremy Bowers <bowersj2@msu.edu>
Subject: Re: Napster at MSU?
References: <87zosiflt7.fsf@pfaffben.user.msu.edu> <38BD879A.315969FF@crushedice.com> <006b01bf83c6$07452b00$46ab0a23@user.msu.edu>
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Jeremy Bowers wrote:
> I would like you to look at this page:
> http://mrtg.cl.msu.edu/mrtg/cc2-gw.2.html
> It's a traffic analysis for a router. This router happens to be a special
> router on campus, as I understand it, this is our Merit link. In other
> words, all outgoing and incoming traffic goes through this router.
>
yes, you are connect.. all outbound world traffic goes over this primary link
to merit networks.
> I want you to read the page _backwards_. Look at the year graph first. The
> graph is almost flat... an odd spike in June I can't explain, but overall,
> the router averages ~1/4 maximum capacity with a roughly equal amount of
> data incoming and outgoing. A small spike on the incoming data in Aug/Sept
> when the students return to campus... then all hell breaks loose in the third
> week of October. I cannot confirm that Napster was released around that time.
all hell breaking lose is not an additional 10Mbits/s.. hell, that could be all
the kiddies x-fering rh6.1 iso.. who cares what its from? not me.. it should
be msu's responsability to have the infrastructre that is capable of handing
high bandwidth..
[Image]
first, the odd spike in june was from a large DOS attack (well, medium sized)
originating from MSU from a few unsecured sun boxes.. just enough to flood a t1
or so..
> I _can_ confirm that the most recent Napster beta was released on January
> 20th... give it a bit of time for word to travel on campus, and we're just
> n time for the Febuary spike that has not ended since.
from doug --
We have two OC-3 links (155 Mbps full-duplex each)
from MSU to the Internet, but only a single FDDI (100 Mbps, half-duplex)
from campus to the Merit routers that attach to these OC-3's. This
will be upgraded by the end of the week.
-- feb 7th
im not specifically sure if the upgrade has been in place, but i think that
merit just sucks for external conectivitiy anywasy..
> Since that spike
> has occurred, network connectivity has been shot to _hell_ around here. The
> MSU web page doesn't even _load_ sometimes, images can be dropped, and other
> such wonderful things, and thats _internal_. External connectivity is even
> worse; my personal non-MSU sites will sometimes just cease to exist for a
> period of a minute or two, and that's happenning multiple times per hour. I
> had a telnet session to pilot _die_ about 3 hours ago; not just hang forever
> waiting for input, which sometimes happens when pilot goes on the fritz, the
> connection _died_. 2 minutes later, it was fine. I couldn't connect before
> then, though.
>
What you are forgetting is this:
--doug
he biggest recent problem is that the Computer Center gigabit
router has been running out of CPU. This shows up as packet loss
almost everywhere. Foundry's tech support came up with a memory
optimization change that improved this. With luck, that will
resolve the packet loss difficulties here.
--feb7th
This is noticable in the http://mrtg.cl.msu.edu/netmon/msu/alldown.html page..
I suggest you take a look at it before blaming internal MSU connectivity on
napster, rather than some major issues in the campus rings.. as of right now,
there are 359 alerts on routers dropping packets
> Now, some points (again, correct me where I go wrong):
>
> - If the recent network problems were solely due to routing issues with
> Merit, then we should expect to see network graphs looking like last
> Saturdays... low, flat, non-activity as nobody can get in or out. Instead,
> we see traffic skyrocketting nearly all of last month. I am concluding that
> we have a traffic issue.
>
> - I can't _prove_ it is Napster, all I'm saying is that based on the
> experiences of other Universities, it is a likely explanation. If it ISN'T
> Napster, I _still_ want to know what it is.
>
its because the GigE implementation wasn't tested on a production bandwith
level..
> - If... if if if it is Napster, then I want it banned or throttled
> immediately. Let the students whine about censorship; let them first look up
> the definition of censorship before they do so, because banning Napster
> ain't censorship by any stretch of the imagination. I've got projects that
> are suffering because the network is being toasted.
stop using napster as a blame. Its not saturating off campus links, MSU is
experiecnign some upgrading issues.. let doug and pals figure it out.. or
better yet, call CIC and ask why so many hosts are losing packets..
> Now, I'd like to ask Doug about these things directly, and ask if he's maybe
> afraid of student backlash or something. Me, I just want the damned network
> to function like it's supposed to.
read msu misc.. he's not..
--from doug
Sure. In general, you can whatever you want with your connection, as long
as it's legal, you follow the AUP, and any other relevant university rules
and regulations. There are no plans that I'm aware of to either limit
bandwidth or restrict access to any sites. We always reserve the right to
temporarily cut off external or internal sites if the traffic interferes
with the network as a whole, but that generally is applied to hacking or
denial-of-service incidents, not general bandwidth hogs.
So.... Make sure your MP3's are legal, and have at it.
--feb29th
> Are there any obvious flaws, other then the fact that I don't have the tools
> to prove or disprove that it is Napster's fault?
obvious flaws - local campus network sucks - not because its oversaturated
(unless you see a link from the fddi ring thats aggregate bandwidht
(inbound+outbound)=100 (cuz its half duplex)), but because something (probably
still gige), isnt behaving nicely with the rest of the fddi rings..
j
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Jeremy Bowers wrote:
I would like you to look at this page:
http://mrtg.cl.msu.edu/mrtg/cc2-gw.2.html
It's a traffic analysis for a router. This router happens to
be a special
router on campus, as I understand it, this is our Merit link.
In other
words, all outgoing and incoming traffic goes through this router.
yes, you are connect.. all outbound world traffic goes over this
primary link to merit networks.
I want you to read the page _backwards_. Look
at the year graph first. The
graph is almost flat... an odd spike in June I can't explain, but overall,
the router averages ~1/4 maximum capacity with a roughly equal amount
of
data incoming and outgoing. A small spike on the incoming data
in Aug/Sept when the students return to campus... then all hell breaks
loose in the third week of October. I cannot confirm that Napster
was released around that time.
all hell breaking lose is not an additional 10Mbits/s.. hell, that
could be all the kiddies x-fering rh6.1 iso.. who cares what its
from? not me.. it should be msu's responsability to have the
infrastructre that is capable of handing high bandwidth..
first, the odd spike in june was from a large DOS attack (well, medium
sized) originating from MSU from a few unsecured sun boxes.. just
enough to flood a t1 or so..
I _can_ confirm that the most recent Napster beta
was released on January
20th... give it a bit of time for word to travel on campus, and we're
just
n time for the Febuary spike that has not ended since.
from doug --
We have two OC-3 links (155 Mbps full-duplex each)
from MSU to the Internet, but only a single FDDI (100 Mbps, half-duplex)
from campus to the Merit routers that attach to these OC-3's.
This
will be upgraded by the end of the week.
-- feb 7th
im not specifically sure if the upgrade has been in place, but i think
that merit just sucks for external conectivitiy anywasy..
Since that spike
has occurred, network connectivity has been shot to _hell_ around here.
The
MSU web page doesn't even _load_ sometimes, images can be dropped,
and other
such wonderful things, and thats _internal_. External connectivity
is even
worse; my personal non-MSU sites will sometimes just cease to exist
for a
period of a minute or two, and that's happenning multiple times per
hour. I
had a telnet session to pilot _die_ about 3 hours ago; not just hang
forever
waiting for input, which sometimes happens when pilot goes on the fritz,
the
connection _died_. 2 minutes later, it was fine. I couldn't
connect before
then, though.
What you are forgetting is this:
--doug
he biggest recent problem is that the Computer Center gigabit
router has been running out of CPU. This shows up as packet
loss
almost everywhere. Foundry's tech support came up with a memory
optimization change that improved this. With luck, that will
resolve the packet loss difficulties here.
--feb7th
This is noticable in the http://mrtg.cl.msu.edu/netmon/msu/alldown.html
page.. I suggest you take a look at it before blaming internal MSU
connectivity on napster, rather than some major issues in the campus rings..
as of right now, there are 359 alerts on routers dropping packets
Now, some points (again, correct me where I go wrong):
- If the recent network problems were solely due to routing issues with
Merit, then we should expect to see network graphs looking like last
Saturdays... low, flat, non-activity as nobody can get in or out.
Instead,
we see traffic skyrocketting nearly all of last month. I am concluding
that
we have a traffic issue.
- I can't _prove_ it is Napster, all I'm saying is that based on the
experiences of other Universities, it is a likely explanation.
If it ISN'T
Napster, I _still_ want to know what it is.
its because the GigE implementation wasn't tested on a production bandwith
level..
- If... if if if it is Napster, then I want it banned
or throttled
immediately. Let the students whine about censorship; let them first
look up
the definition of censorship before they do so, because banning Napster
ain't censorship by any stretch of the imagination. I've got
projects that
are suffering because the network is being toasted.
stop using napster as a blame. Its not saturating off campus links,
MSU is experiecnign some upgrading issues.. let doug and pals figure
it out.. or better yet, call CIC and ask why so many hosts are losing
packets..
Now, I'd like to ask Doug about these things directly,
and ask if he's maybe
afraid of student backlash or something. Me, I just want the
damned network
to function like it's supposed to.
read msu misc.. he's not..
--from doug
Sure. In general, you can whatever you want with your connection,
as long
as it's legal, you follow the AUP, and any other relevant university
rules
and regulations. There are no plans that I'm aware of to either
limit
bandwidth or restrict access to any sites. We always reserve
the right to
temporarily cut off external or internal sites if the traffic interferes
with the network as a whole, but that generally is applied to hacking
or
denial-of-service incidents, not general bandwidth hogs.
So.... Make sure your MP3's are legal, and have at it.
--feb29th
Are there any obvious flaws, other then the fact
that I don't have the tools
to prove or disprove that it is Napster's fault?
obvious flaws - local campus network sucks - not because its oversaturated
(unless you see a link from the fddi ring thats aggregate bandwidht (inbound+outbound)=100
(cuz its half duplex)), but because something (probably still gige), isnt
behaving nicely with the rest of the fddi rings..
j