perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Craig Finch <>]

Jason,
Our perfSONAR hosts have actual public IP addresses, and they are cut off 
from reaching the Internet by our DMZ border router.  This is a temporary, 
self-imposed limitation while we get our DMZ configured and tested.

It sounds like perfSONAR wasn't designed to operate in the way that I'm 
currently using it, and it needs to have Internet access to work correctly.  
I didn't pick that up from the documentation, so you could consider 
mentioning somewhere that perfSONAR needs Internet access for full 
functionality.  That may seem obvious to the developers at ESnet and 
Internet2 because you work on the WAN all the time, but those of us coming 
from a "campus" perspective tend to keep things on private networks, behind 
firewalls and NAT boxes.  I often test new software on a set of virtual 
machines with a completely private network.

Since perfSONAR is in our DMZ, it will only have access to about 14,000 
Internet2 routes from Florida LambdaRail, and will not have access to the 
public Internet.  Will we be able to reach the Google API from our DMZ?

    Craig

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Zurawski 
[mailto:]
 
Sent: Friday, December 20, 2013 12:35 PM
To: Craig Finch
Cc: 

Subject: Re: [perfsonar-user] Questions about perfSONAR without an Internet 
connection

Hi Craig/All;

Lets see if we can clear up some of what you are asking:

>> 1. I had to add the host IP address to the file 
>> /opt/perfsonar_ps/toolkit/etc/external_addresses in order to establish 
>> communication between the two perfSONAR nodes.  

To answer this, we need to clarify this first:

>> They have valid Internet IP addresses

Do you mean they had an RFC1918 local address, or they had actual public 
addresses and were just cut off from reaching the public internet?  In the 
case of the former, this is well documented on the FAQ:

http://psps.perfsonar.net/toolkit/FAQs.html#Q44

If the later is the case, we may need some more information and log files to 
determine if this a bug.  

>> 2. I was able to schedule a ping test between the nodes, but I am unable 
>> to plot the data.  I go to "Ping Latency" under "Service Graphs" to access 
>> the "PingER Tests" page.  This page shows an active data set.  When I try 
>> to graph the data, a new window opens up, but it doesn't contain a plot.  
>> It appears that the server is trying to access a web application from 
>> google.com in order create the graph.  Is that what's happening? Is there 
>> a way to see the data without Google?  I think the one-way latency and 
>> bandwidth measurements have the same problem.


Lets back up a step or two and explain how the graphs work before we start a 
privacy and data flame war:

1) The graphs are built using the Google Visualization API 
(https://developers.google.com/chart/), and like other javascript 
visualization APIs the source lives in a central location that someone else 
maintains (e.g. Google).  When your client accesses one of the CGI scripts 
the libraries need to be downloaded (e.g. why things didn't work in your 
case). 

2) Rendering of the graph data is done on the client side - e.g. data is not 
sent off to google, although I am sure your client accessing the libraries is 
logged in some mysterious data center in Mountain View CA, and then again in 
Columbia MD.  This is spelled out in one of the development documents:

https://google-developers.appspot.com/chart/interactive/docs/gallery/linechart#Data_Policy

Hope this helps.  

Thanks;

-jason

On Dec 20, 2013, at 12:05 PM, Craig Finch 
<>
 wrote:

> I'm experimenting with a pair of perfSONAR nodes on an isolated network.  
> They have valid Internet IP addresses, but they don't have any access to 
> the outside world.  I have noticed a couple of issues while testing the 
> nodes under this configuration, and I suspect that others will try a 
> similar experiment and run into the same issues.  
> 
> 1. I had to add the host IP address to the file 
> /opt/perfsonar_ps/toolkit/etc/external_addresses in order to establish 
> communication between the two perfSONAR nodes.  
> 
> 2. I was able to schedule a ping test between the nodes, but I am unable to 
> plot the data.  I go to "Ping Latency" under "Service Graphs" to access the 
> "PingER Tests" page.  This page shows an active data set.  When I try to 
> graph the data, a new window opens up, but it doesn't contain a plot.  It 
> appears that the server is trying to access a web application from 
> google.com in order create the graph.  Is that what's happening? Is there a 
> way to see the data without Google?  I think the one-way latency and 
> bandwidth measurements have the same problem.
> 
> Craig Finch
> Postdoctoral Research Associate, STOKES Advanced Research Computing 
> Center Institute for Simulation & Training University of Central 
> Florida
> 3100 Technology Pkwy., Orlando, FL 32826-0544
> 407-823-0711
>