A new packet-tracking service is available for PlanetLab testbed users. Each user can now inspect the network traffic of her/his experiments with packet or flow resolution.

Passive measurements capture traffic conditions on the network during experiments. The service collects important information for the evaluation and interpretation of experiments: packet timestamps, number of active flows, most-used address ports and protocols, the number of packets or number of bytes exchanged between nodes in a time window and so on. t is possible to calculate high-level metrics such as traffic volume at different nodes or packet transmission quality. In the next few weeks, users will be able to create and use their own passive monitoring module, customized for their specific experiment.

The passive monitoring infrastructure is provided by OneLab partner Quantavis as part of WP5 packet tracking.

The overall architecture is based on the CoMo open-source project from Intel Research. CoMo is a passive monitoring software that implements both an abstraction layer for the capture devices and a modular approach for packet analysis. This modular approach allows fast prototyping of ad-hoc network monitoring applications.

The packet-tracking architecture relies on the setup of additional hardware close to PlanetLab nodes at each monitoring site. The additional hardware consists of a CoMo box (a server running CoMo) and a network switch that supports port mirroring.

A collaborative space is provided by a wiki. The wiki contains a description of the architecture, installation packages, instructions, and a users' guide to the service. It is aimed at becoming the single stop for support and documentation of the service. Documentation for CoMo APIs for module development and a repository of third-party modules will be added shortly.

All communication between end-users and CoMo boxes is coordinated by a proxy that ensures privacy and security. Users have access to in-depth their own traffic and aggregate information to other users' traffic. The proxy can be used both from a command line interface and from a secure web interface. The available monitoring sites are displayed on a map and can be queried with few clicks.

New features will be added to the monitoring service every three months, according to the timeline described in the wiki.

All users of the PlanetLab Europe testbed are invited to join the monitoring service and to start using it.

Feedback and suggestions are welcome. Please contact packet-tracking@onelab.eu