perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Brian Tierney <>]

Good catch! I'll add this to the issue track to fix.


On May 23, 2013, at 2:07 PM, Peter van Heusden 
<>
 wrote:

> Ok, I found the cause of the problem!
> 
> Somehow the web user interface is setting the TOS Bits field of the 
> bandwidth test I had set up to "NaN". This then leads to the following 
> lines (around line 1243) of bwmaster.pl triggering and       adding a "-S 
> NaN" to the bwctl command line. Then bwctl of course fails and is 
> restarted... etc etc.
> 
>     push @cmd, ( "-S", $val ) if (
>         $val = $conf->get_val(
>             TESTSPEC => $ms->{'TESTSPEC'},
>             ATTR     => 'BWTosBits'
>         )
>     );
> 
> I manually removed the BWTosBits entry in 
> /opt/perfsonar_ps/perfsonarbuoy_ma/etc/owmesh.conf and the restart loop has 
> now stopped.
> 
> Thanks,
> Peter
> 
> On 23/05/2013 22:48, Peter van Heusden wrote:
>> Yes, those work fine. E.g.:
>> 
>> [root@ps
>>  sysconfig]# bwctl -c 192.168.2.132 -s 192.168.2.104
>> bwctl: Using tool: iperf
>> bwctl: 15 seconds until test results available
>> 
>> RECEIVER START
>> bwctl: exec_line: iperf -B ps2.sanbi.ac.za -s -f b -m -p 5176 -t 10
>> bwctl: start_tool: 3578330236.026986
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> Server listening on TCP port 5176
>> Binding to local address ps2.sanbi.ac.za
>> TCP window size: 87380 Byte (default)
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> [ 15] local 192.168.2.132 port 5176 connected with 192.168.2.104 port 5176
>> [ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
>> [ 15]  0.0-10.0 sec  530448384 Bytes  422283774 bits/sec
>> [ 15] MSS size 1448 bytes (MTU 1500 bytes, ethernet)
>> bwctl: stop_exec: 3578330249.065921
>> 
>> RECEIVER END
>> 
>> Is there any other log file that I could be looking in? The messages in 
>> /var/log/messages don't explain *why* bwctl is being restarted, also there 
>> is a bwctl process running the entire time, so I'm not sure *what* is 
>> being restarted!
>> 
>> Thanks!
>> Peter
>> On 23/05/2013 22:28, Aaron Brown wrote:
>>> Hey Peter,
>>> 
>>> Can you run bwctl tests by hand?
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> Aaron
>>> 
>>> On May 23, 2013, at 4:27 PM, Peter van Heusden 
>>> <>
>>>  wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I made that change, and added tock.meraka.csir.co.za - a stratum 1 
>>>> server that is about 1000 miles away. ntpq -p now shows:
>>>> 
>>>>      remote           refid      st t when poll reach   delay   offset  
>>>> jitter
>>>> ==============================================================================
>>>> *zibbi.meraka.cs 238.72.153.243   2 u   40   64    1   72.996   -3.658   
>>>> 6.944
>>>> +firewall.sanbi. 41.73.38.11      3 u   22   64    7    0.070   -4.745   
>>>> 0.173
>>>> -ntp0.za.uu.net  216.171.120.36   3 u   20   64    7    5.677    0.208  
>>>> 15.795
>>>> -ntp2.is.co.za   146.64.58.41     2 u   21   64    7    5.525   -9.424  
>>>> 16.250
>>>> +tock.meraka.csi .PPS.            1 u    -   64   15   73.582   -3.607  
>>>> 21.681
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> and bwmaster.pl is still restarting.
>>>> 
>>>> :(
>>>> 
>>>> On 23/05/2013 21:46, Pedro Queirós wrote:
>>>>> Try this:
>>>>> 
>>>>> server ntp1.meraka.csir.co.za iburst minpoll 4 maxpoll 6
>>>>> server ntp.sanbi.ac.za iburst minpoll 4 maxpoll 6
>>>>> server ntp0.za.uu.net iburst minpoll 4 maxpoll 6
>>>>> server ntp2.is.co.za iburst minpoll 4 maxpoll 6
>>>>> 
>>>>> Asides from that, it looks good. If possible, try to have access 
>>>>> to good (e.g. low delay) NTP stratum 1 server near your network.
>>>>> 
>>>>> If the bwmaster.pl continues restarting, I'd suggest looking into
>>>>> something else - let us know about!
>>>>> 
>>>>> Ah, don't forget to restart ntpd after changing the config file!
>>>>> 
>>>>> Pedro
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 8:31 PM, Peter van Heusden 
>>>>> <>
>>>>>  wrote:
>>>>> logfile /var/log/ntpd
>>>>> driftfile /var/lib/ntp/ntp.drift
>>>>> statsdir  /var/lib/ntp/
>>>>> statistics loopstats peerstats clockstats
>>>>> filegen loopstats file loopstats type day enable
>>>>> filegen peerstats file peerstats type day enable
>>>>> filegen clockstats file clockstats type day enable
>>>>> 
>>>>> # You should have at least 4 NTP servers
>>>>> 
>>>>> server ntp1.meraka.csir.co.za iburst
>>>>> server ntp.sanbi.ac.za iburst
>>>>> server ntp0.za.uu.net iburst
>>>>> server chronos.es.net iburst
>>>>> server ntp2.is.co.za iburst
>>>>> 
>>>>> thanks!
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 23/05/2013 21:17, Pedro Queirós wrote:
>>>>>> Peter, from the ntpq -p output I can see your NTP config is faulty.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Can you provide the /etc/ntp.conf file?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Kind Regards,
>>>>>> Pedro
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 8:04 PM, Jason Zurawski 
>>>>>> <>
>>>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>> While not true in this case that you sent - static lists fall into 
>>>>>> disrepair frequently.  A couple of months back we tried this in the 
>>>>>> APAN region and found about 1/5 still worked well after being posted 
>>>>>> to an 'official' wiki.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> It doesn't hurt to ask those on the front lines that are adopting pS 
>>>>>> for some insider info - that request applies to all, even if they ate 
>>>>>> not in South Africa.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks;
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -jason
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On May 23, 2013, at 11:58 AM, Michael Sinatra 
>>>>>> <>
>>>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> > On 05/23/2013 11:44, Jason Zurawski wrote:
>>>>>> >> Hey Peter;
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> I would nuke the ESnet server too - NTP works best when the servers 
>>>>>> >> are within the same timezone/continent, it gives the algorithms a 
>>>>>> >> level playing field to choose from.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > It's not really the case that a server outside of the timezone or 
>>>>>> > continent matters.  The key is whether it's more likely than not 
>>>>>> > that there will be asymmetry in the path to/from a given NTP server. 
>>>>>> >  I don't really see much evidence of that with any of the            
>>>>>> >                                servers in the list, except for 
>>>>>> > possibly ntp.mtnbusiness....
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >> A related note is that we are always looking to add new servers 
>>>>>> >> into our list around the world - if you know of 'open' clocks in 
>>>>>> >> the region that we can front-load into the list, that can be 
>>>>>> >> arranged.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > Well, there's a published list of them here:
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/WebHome
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > :)
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > michael
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> ESnet/Internet2 Focused Technical Workshop
>>> Network Issues for Life Sciences Research
>>> July 17 - 18, 2013, Berkeley CA
>>> http://events.internet2.edu/2013/ftw-life-sciences/
>>> 
>> 
>