CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Kenneth Goodwin/PSC NJM Minutes Instead of putting actual copies of maps into central repositories, pointers as to where to get the maps should be placed there. This would make it easier and quicker to update maps, since the network manager does not have to distribute maps, just update the local copy. It seems as though the very bade traceroute has disappeared from many peoples' list of tools. Matt Mathis said that it appears that traceroute is included in Ultrix 4.2, although it is unknown whether it does third party or not. Sources for traceroute are available via anonymous ftp from ftp.lbl.gov (may not include the third party mods) and from nic.near.net (in the pub or src directory). Also, Matt M. provided some examples of traceroutes into the backbone that failed. The common denominator being that if the endpoint or the corner of the third party traceroute is in the backbone, it will fail. Merit says that this may be by design. Merit/ANS discussed their architecture plans for the CNSS [see also slides from the plenary technical presentation by Elise Gerich and Jordan Becker - EFH]. Currently, they decrement the TTL through the routers, but would like to make the CNSS's in a POP appear to be one router by only decrementing the TTL on entry or exit. This would make the separate CNSS's invisible. One point against this is that in a tightly coupled FDDI, this could create a giant loop. (??) Merit also said that future cards will receive routing updates from the CPU. Fallback paths were also discussed. (In particular fallback paths of lower capacity) Some important points were that if a backup path exists, then it should be carrying some traffic all the time, so that the backup path's status is known at all times. Backup paths of lesser capacity can easily be flooded by production traffic, so some means of limiting traffic must be made. Things like mail can be MX'ed to the backup path, and all other traffic could be blackholed. As nets become faster, monitoring is becoming harder. Merit is currently using periodic sampling of 1 in every 50 packets on the T3. Merit would like to use a more stochastic process. More work needs to be put into this to determine a more accurate sampling process. With more and more nets appearing, some better method of reporting outages is needed. An outage of a campus with large nets could easily flood people. A template for reporting outages is needed, so that a database can parse these messages and store the information. Thus, one need not even read the mail, but query the database for the net in question. Merit is working on something like this for trouble ticket tracking. 1 Since high schools are entering the internet, two problems are occurring. Under what name should the schools appear. (us or edu) Also, how do we get them started? Nearnet offers a full service option for new people, that completely orients the newcomer. User Services should also target the end user and not just the network operators. Attendees Vikas Aggarwal vikas@JVNC.net Jordan Becker becker@nis.ans.net Eric Carroll eric@utcs.utoronto.ca Henry Clark henryc@oar.net Tom Easterday tom@cic.net Susan Estrada Estradas@cerf.net Vince Fuller vaf@stanford.edu Maria Gallagher maria@nsipo.arc.nasa.gov Kenneth Goodwin goodwin@psc.edu Jack Hahn hahn@umd5.umd.edu Eugene Hastings hastings@psc.edu Ittai Hershman ittai@nis.ans.net Daniel Long long@nic.near.net Matt Mathis mathis@psc.edu Philippe Park ppark@bbn.com Marsha Perrott mlp+@andrew.cmu.edu Robert Reschly reschly@brl.mil Ron Roberts roberts@jessica.stanford.edu Timothy Salo tjs@msc.edu Tom Sandoski tom@concert.net Roxanne Streeter streeter@nsipo.nasa.gov Ross Veach rrv@uiuc.edu Chris Waters-Pierandozzi waters@jvnc.net Gerard White ger@concord.com Cathy Wittbrodt cjw@nersc.gov 2