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Subject: Announcement list for new releases of perfSONAR-PS

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[perfsonar-ps-announce] pS Performance Toolkit Operation in a Firewalled World


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  • From: Jason Zurawski <>
  • To: "" <>, "" <>, perfsonar-ps-users <>, "" <>, perfsonar-user <>, perfsonar-announce <>, "" <>
  • Cc: "" <>
  • Subject: [perfsonar-ps-announce] pS Performance Toolkit Operation in a Firewalled World
  • Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:02:46 +0000
  • Accept-language: en-US
  • Authentication-results: sfpop-ironport04.merit.edu; dkim=neutral (message not signed) header.i=none

All;

Many of you know that the pS Performance Toolkit team is preparing to release
version 3.3 of the software very soon. Looking back, the first release of
this product was made in 2008. 5 years of experience has delivered a stable
and well adopted system, now used around the world, and we have the community
to thank for their commentary and patience as a part of that process.

One blind spot that exists, both in our software and other measurement
products in general, is the ability to work with security infrastructure in a
seamless manner. As many know, security infrastructure such as IDSs,
Firewalls, and other mechanisms meant to control the traffic patterns of
networks, rely on a priori knowledge of the communication pattern. For
instance using 'well known' ports makes it easier to white-list traffic, and
increases the chances for success in performing measurement through a secured
environment since it can be identified as being harmless. The traditional
stance of tool makers has been to allow for the fungible use of ports - any
will do, and steps were never taken to mandate operation to specific numbers
or ranges.

Working closely with the NTAC Performance Working Group, this next release of
toolkit software features a new approach: an attempt to migrate all of the
major measurement tools (e.g. BWCTL, OWAMP, NDT, NPAD, Pinger, Traceroute,
Reverse CGIs, and some others) to use a set of fixed ports for communication.
We hope this will have two major impacts:

- Well known ports will make it easier for sites that are using firewalls to
specify the requirements of measurement on the host itself, and all network
devices in the middle

- Sites that are not using firewalls will be able to test to firewalled sites
(as well as firewalled sites testing to them) and be guaranteed of success.
Previous attempts in this space could have involved sites choosing different
'ranges' for their tools, and the tools did not effectively negotiate on a
strategy that would lead to working measurement.

To facilitate this new approach, we have taken a couple of steps to educate
everyone:

- A document (attached, and available online here:
http://psps.perfsonar.net/toolkit/20130416-Firewall-PerfWG.pdf) explains the
known problems, our solution, and the list of ports and tool changes

- The pS Performance Toolkit is now including a stub iptables file that can
be used by sites that wish to implement host level filtering. In our basic
testing we have noticed that iptables did not have a severe impact on
measurement traffic, but we still believe turning this feature on is a site
level decision.

We do want to make one peripheral point clear: this new approach is not an
endorsement for the use of firewalls in front of the measurement
infrastructure. As the perfSONAR project has noted in the past - measurement
of the network is best done without other devices impacting performance. We
are however cognizant that not all sites have adopted Science DMZ principals
as of yet, or may have other restrictions in place that necessitates the use
of security infrastructure for protection of resources. Sometimes seeing the
performance through a firewall can be a positive thing, especially if you are
emulating the experience that end users would see - the data provided from
perfSONAR can be a powerful motivating factor to share with network and
campus administration.

As always, we welcome questions and comments on this issue to any of the
relevant mailing lists.

Thanks;

-jason

Attachment: 20130416-Firewall-PerfWG.pdf
Description: 20130416-Firewall-PerfWG.pdf



  • [perfsonar-ps-announce] pS Performance Toolkit Operation in a Firewalled World, Jason Zurawski, 04/16/2013

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