Internet congestion?

I run a monitoring system that pings the external IP addresses of a few
dozen clients, once per minute. The purpose is to warn me when any of those
clients loses their internet connection.

Over the last two days pings fail for many minutes at a time; yet when I
check I can connect to the suspect clients' routers with no difficulty, and
the routers report uptimes extending back over several days. So it would
seem that ICMP echo packets are being dropped on a grand scale.

This appears to relate primarily to clients who have their ADSL service from
either BT or Sky.

Anybody else seen this?

--
Graham J

"Graham J" <graham@invalid> wrote in message news:4d0211a0$0$2513$(E-Mail Removed)...
>I run a monitoring system that pings the external IP addresses of a few dozen clients, once per minute. The purpose is to warn me
>when any of those clients loses their internet connection.
>
> Over the last two days pings fail for many minutes at a time; yet when I check I can connect to the suspect clients' routers with
> no difficulty, and the routers report uptimes extending back over several days. So it would seem that ICMP echo packets are being
> dropped on a grand scale.
>
> This appears to relate primarily to clients who have their ADSL service from either BT or Sky.
>
> Anybody else seen this?
>

I have f8lure pinging my own router, and also a VM router in Liverpool
It is also pinging a few similar VM IPs as control specimens.
Looking back at the last week or so graphs, if anything, things are calmer than usual.
f8lure does have its own issues at its host end, and the sysop endlessly complains
about them.

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

"Graham." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:idt61r$sd5$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Graham J" <graham@invalid> wrote in message
> news:4d0211a0$0$2513$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>I run a monitoring system that pings the external IP addresses of a few
>>dozen clients, once per minute. The purpose is to warn me when any of
>>those clients loses their internet connection.
>>
>> Over the last two days pings fail for many minutes at a time; yet when I
>> check I can connect to the suspect clients' routers with no difficulty,
>> and the routers report uptimes extending back over several days. So it
>> would seem that ICMP echo packets are being dropped on a grand scale.
>>
>> This appears to relate primarily to clients who have their ADSL service
>> from either BT or Sky.
>>
>> Anybody else seen this?
>>
>
> I have f8lure pinging my own router, and also a VM router in Liverpool
> It is also pinging a few similar VM IPs as control specimens.
> Looking back at the last week or so graphs, if anything, things are calmer
> than usual.
> f8lure does have its own issues at its host end, and the sysop endlessly
> complains
> about them.

In the past I used F8Lure but they went off the radar a year or so back, so
I wrote a script to run on an old PC. Nice to learn that they are back in
action ...

--
Graham J

Meanwhile, at the uk.telecom.broadband Job Justification Hearings, Graham J
chose the tried and tested strategy of:

> Over the last two days pings fail for many minutes at a time; yet when I
> check I can connect to the suspect clients' routers with no difficulty,
> and
> the routers report uptimes extending back over several days. So it would
> seem that ICMP echo packets are being dropped on a grand scale.
>
> This appears to relate primarily to clients who have their ADSL service
> from either BT or Sky.
>
> Anybody else seen this?

I do something similar with Smokeping, at work and at home. I haven't seen
the pattern you're describing, but I'm not monitoring any BT ADSL [but a few
BTnet circuits] or Sky ADSL [but a few Easynet circuits]. Is it just Sky and
BT where you're seeing the problem?

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) ((E-Mail Removed))
12:41:54 up 1 day, 14:37, 8 users, load average: 0.14, 0.11, 0.12
"I am utterly appalled at how I have been treated like a criminal"
-- Andrew Crossley, ACS:Law, 13 August 2010

"Graham J" <graham@invalid> wrote in message news:4d022031$0$12173$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Graham." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:idt61r$sd5$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>
>> "Graham J" <graham@invalid> wrote in message news:4d0211a0$0$2513$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>>I run a monitoring system that pings the external IP addresses of a few dozen clients, once per minute. The purpose is to warn
>>>me when any of those clients loses their internet connection.
>>>
>>> Over the last two days pings fail for many minutes at a time; yet when I check I can connect to the suspect clients' routers
>>> with no difficulty, and the routers report uptimes extending back over several days. So it would seem that ICMP echo packets
>>> are being dropped on a grand scale.
>>>
>>> This appears to relate primarily to clients who have their ADSL service from either BT or Sky.
>>>
>>> Anybody else seen this?
>>>
>>
>> I have f8lure pinging my own router, and also a VM router in Liverpool
>> It is also pinging a few similar VM IPs as control specimens.
>> Looking back at the last week or so graphs, if anything, things are calmer than usual.
>> f8lure does have its own issues at its host end, and the sysop endlessly complains
>> about them.
>
> In the past I used F8Lure but they went off the radar a year or so back, so I wrote a script to run on an old PC. Nice to learn
> that they are back in action ...

Wasn't it l8nc that dissapeared and f8lure filled the gap?

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

"Graham." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:idtpmv$m7g$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Graham J" <graham@invalid> wrote in message
> news:4d022031$0$12173$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>
>> "Graham." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:idt61r$sd5$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>>
>>> "Graham J" <graham@invalid> wrote in message
>>> news:4d0211a0$0$2513$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>>>I run a monitoring system that pings the external IP addresses of a few
>>>>dozen clients, once per minute. The purpose is to warn me when any of
>>>>those clients loses their internet connection.
>>>>
>>>> Over the last two days pings fail for many minutes at a time; yet when
>>>> I check I can connect to the suspect clients' routers with no
>>>> difficulty, and the routers report uptimes extending back over several
>>>> days. So it would seem that ICMP echo packets are being dropped on a
>>>> grand scale.
>>>>
>>>> This appears to relate primarily to clients who have their ADSL service
>>>> from either BT or Sky.
>>>>
>>>> Anybody else seen this?
>>>>
>>>
>>> I have f8lure pinging my own router, and also a VM router in Liverpool
>>> It is also pinging a few similar VM IPs as control specimens.
>>> Looking back at the last week or so graphs, if anything, things are
>>> calmer than usual.
>>> f8lure does have its own issues at its host end, and the sysop endlessly
>>> complains
>>> about them.
>>
>> In the past I used F8Lure but they went off the radar a year or so back,
>> so I wrote a script to run on an old PC. Nice to learn that they are
>> back in action ...
>
> Wasn't it l8nc that dissapeared and f8lure filled the gap?

You may be right - my memory is flaky. But the screens look the same ...

--
Graham J

"alexd" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Meanwhile, at the uk.telecom.broadband Job Justification Hearings, Graham
> J
> chose the tried and tested strategy of:
>
>> Over the last two days pings fail for many minutes at a time; yet when I
>> check I can connect to the suspect clients' routers with no difficulty,
>> and
>> the routers report uptimes extending back over several days. So it would
>> seem that ICMP echo packets are being dropped on a grand scale.
>>
>> This appears to relate primarily to clients who have their ADSL service
>> from either BT or Sky.
>>
>> Anybody else seen this?
>
> I do something similar with Smokeping, at work and at home. I haven't seen
> the pattern you're describing, but I'm not monitoring any BT ADSL [but a
> few
> BTnet circuits] or Sky ADSL [but a few Easynet circuits]. Is it just Sky
> and
> BT where you're seeing the problem?

Indeed yes, just BT domestic services and Sky. BT Business clients seem to
be OK.

--
Graham J

On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:57:44 -0000, "Graham." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>"Graham J" <graham@invalid> wrote in message news:4d022031$0$12173$(E-Mail Removed)...
>Wasn't it l8nc that dissapeared and f8lure filled the gap?

That's my recollection...
--
Free personal divertable Phone number: <http://www.bizorg.co.uk/personalnos.htm>

Meanwhile, at the uk.telecom.broadband Job Justification Hearings, Graham J
chose the tried and tested strategy of:

> Over the last two days pings fail for many minutes at a time; yet when I
> check I can connect to the suspect clients' routers with no difficulty,
> and
> the routers report uptimes extending back over several days. So it would
> seem that ICMP echo packets are being dropped on a grand scale.

Are you graphing the response time? Is it possible that responses that take
longer than a certain time are reported as lost? Completely dropping ICMP
echo seems extreme to me, but then I was surprised when one ISP claimed to
be de-prioritising ICMP during peak times, so anything's possible.

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) ((E-Mail Removed))
10:06:57 up 2 days, 12:02, 8 users, load average: 0.01, 0.65, 0.77
"I am utterly appalled at how I have been treated like a criminal"
-- Andrew Crossley, ACS:Law, 13 August 2010

alexd <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> [...] I was surprised when one ISP claimed to be de-prioritising ICMP
> during peak times, so anything's possible.

It wouldn't surprise me if a significant percentage of ISP traffic
was ICMP Ping from people "just checking" that servers are reachable
from home.

Of course, ping doesn't really show that a service is available; one
needs a service monitor for that. And besides, if a remote box becomes
unreachable for a few minutes, what is a (domestic) ISP realistically
going to do about it that they wouldn't be doing based on their own
monitoring, anyway?

Chris