perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Andrew Lake <>]

Hi,

A limitation of the client is that it can only do third-party test, so “--source localhost” will not work since your laptop does not have all the plug-ins installed to run iperf3. If you do the container you won’t have that limitation (though you probably just want to leave the source blank instead of setting it to “localhost” as it might try to bind iperf3 to loopback). 

Let us know if you have any issues getting the container going.

Thanks,

Andy

On December 6, 2018 at 10:53:03 AM, Robinson, John-Paul () wrote:

Andy,

Thanks for the feedback.   The choice makes sense and isn't too inconvenient.

I tried using the generic assist server but my client seems to still prefer localhost.   Is there something I'm doing wrong?

jpr@laptop:~$ pscheduler task --debug --assist 56m-ps.sox.net throughput --source localhost --dest 56m-ps.sox.net
2018-12-06T09:52:07 Debug started
2018-12-06T09:52:07 Assistance is from 56m-ps.sox.net
2018-12-06T09:52:07 Forcing default slip of PT5M
2018-12-06T09:52:07 Converting to spec via https://56m-ps.sox.net/pscheduler/tests/throughput/spec
Submitting with assistance from 56m-ps.sox.net...
2018-12-06T09:52:07 Fetching participant list
2018-12-06T09:52:07 Spec is: {"dest": "56m-ps.sox.net", "source": "localhost", "schema": 1}
2018-12-06T09:52:07 Params are: {'spec': '{"dest": "56m-ps.sox.net", "source": "localhost", "schema": 1}'}
2018-12-06T09:52:08 Got participants: {u'participants': [u'localhost', u'56m-ps.sox.net']}
2018-12-06T09:52:08 Lead is localhost
2018-12-06T09:52:08 Pinging https://localhost/pscheduler/
2018-12-06T09:52:08 Pinging https://localhost/pscheduler/
Unable to find pScheduler on any of localhost, localhost.

I will explore the containerized perfsonar.  I like that approach.  I had actually tried to build myself a container for perfsonar back in 2014 but was too new to both technologies to succeed.  IIRC I ran into problems with published public endpoint addresses vs private local host addresses (akin to typical firewall issues).  I assume this new tech stack is able cope with these details.   Look forward to exploring it.

John-Paul

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From: Andrew Lake <>
Sent: Wednesday, December 5, 2018 1:45:07 PM
To: Robinson, John-Paul;
Subject: Re: [perfsonar-user] running bandwidth test from a laptop

 

Hi,

There is no thin client beyond what you have described like there was in BWCTL. This is a trade-off we made to get the increased functionality of pScheduler.  You are correct that the current client requires an --assist server and can only do third-party tests. Feel free to do something like “--assist atla-pt1.es.net” if you need a server. All the assist server does is look at the parameters and tell the test where to go. After the initial lookups, the assist server is out of the picture. Alternatively if you are doing a test where you know the source and/or dest has pScheduler, just feed one of those addresses to --assist. 

Another option that is currently my personally preferred method for running perfSONAR on my laptop is to run it in Docker. We have an image in Docker Hub of the testpoint bundle. The advantage is all the dependencies on Apache, PostgreSQL, etc are isolated within the Docker container. The container is pretty lightweight so it's quick to bring up/down as needed. I know it is not exactly the same, but I’ve found it to work reasonably well. Instructions here if you are interested: http://docs.perfsonar.net/install_docker.html

Thanks,

Andy

On December 5, 2018 at 2:01:04 PM, Robinson, John-Paul () wrote:

Hi,

In the past I could install the perfsonar tools on my laptop and use bwctl to run throughput tests from my laptop to points of interest on and off campus.

I can still install the tools bundle on my laptop with `sudo apt-get install perfsonar-tools` but with the switch away from bwctl to pscheduler it appears I can just run my tests.  I get an error when I try the simple example:

jpr@laptop:~$ pscheduler task rtt --dest www.perfsonar.net
Unable to find pScheduler on localhost

It seems I can't start any tests with out a pscheduler server or assist server:

https://docs.perfsonar.net/pscheduler_client_tasks.html#running-tests-from-other-hosts

The server comes in the testpoint bundle and has a lot of dependencies like apache.  It looks like the --assist flag could help, but I don't know of an assist server.

Is there a way to run pscheduler test on a trim client-only install like bwctl could?

Thanks,

John-Paul   

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