km@emory.uucp (Ken Mandelberg) (09/08/88)
Here is the motivation for this ill defined question. Our connection to
the Internet is via Suranet, which is itself connected with a Proteon
ring. There are apparently both official and unofficial gateways to
other components of the Internet. When the official one goes down the
Internet looks partitioned to us. However, during these down periods
our next door neighbor on the ring still gets connectivity apparently
by using some other gateway (not local to his site).
I am wondering what tools are available for tracking routes. We would
like to see how our neighbor manages to get out when we can't. In
general are their any Unix host based programs that can track packets?
Is there a host based program that can broadcast a request of the sort
"which gateways know how to get to XXX"?
--
Ken Mandelberg | km@mathcs.emory.edu PREFERRED
Emory University | {decvax,gatech}!emory!km UUCP
Dept of Math and CS | km@emory NON-DOMAIN BITNET
Atlanta, GA 30322 | Phone: (404) 727-7963kwe@bu-cs.BU.EDU (kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent W. England)) (09/09/88)
In article <3170@emory.uucp> km@emory.uucp (Ken Mandelberg) writes: > >I am wondering what tools are available for tracking routes. We would >like to see how our neighbor manages to get out when we can't. The short, funny, and sad answer is "ping, telnet, friends, guest accounts on critical routers, and backdoors". >In general are their any Unix host based programs that can track packets? >Is there a host based program that can broadcast a request of the sort >"which gateways know how to get to XXX"? SNMP will help equalize the situation, if your neighbors and regional will let you peek. A ping with record route option will tell you how your packets are getting there and back, but won't find you a backdoor. There are good reasons for backdoor, unadvertised routes between nets. Perhaps your neighbor, for one of several good reasons, does not want to allow your traffic to transit his net to get out to the backbone. Backdoor routes are such *because* they cannot be found from where you are. Otherwise, they are regular routes. I might suggest that if you are responsible for networking at Emory that you begin to get yourself a backdoor around or to SURAnet by working with your neighbors. That's the way it's done. Another tack, complain like hell to SURAnet when you lose your connection. Your neighbor isn't cheating. He's just got some insurance and you can get some too. Kent England, BU