find_psbox.py

This script locates the closest RIPE Atlas probes (called proximity services boxes) to IP addresses.

In order to launch this script, please use the following command:

python find psbox.py -k <API-KEY> [-n <IP filename>] [-o <targetIP>] [-r {0,1}]

<API-Key> points to a RIPE Atlas API Key with Measurement creation permissions. Such a key can easily be created through the Web interface of RIPE Atlas.

<IP filename> refers to the name of the file in which the IP addresses DisNETPerf should locate the closest RIPE Atlas box to are listed. This file has to be stored in the ‘input’ folder. The file should contain one IP per line. An IP should be in the usual format, i.e. X.X.X.X where X is an integer >= 0.

If you want to analyze only a single IP, you can also use the -o parameter and replace <targetIP> with that particular IP.

If you set the -r parameter to 1, the recovery-mode will be enabled. For further information about this mode, please have a look at the documentation about it. (The default-value for this parameter is 0.)

Output

The output file of the script find_psbox.py contains information about the targetIPs and the corresponding computed closest boxes. The naming scheme of such an output-file is <timestamp>_psbox.txt where <timestamp> refers to the timestamp indicating when find_psbox.py was launched. This file is saved into the folder output.

The lines of an output-file follow the format:

<targetIP> <psBox ID> <psBox IP> <AS number> <min RTT> <label>

where <psBox ID/IP> refers to the ID/IP of the found proximity service box, <AS number> to the AS number in which this probe is installed, and <min RTT> to the minimum RTT measured from this box to the targetIP.

Finally, <label> can have the following values:

• [OK]: the candidate RIPE Atlas boxes (i.e. among the ones the closest one has been chosen) are either in the same AS as <target-IP> or in the neighbour-ASes
• [NO_AS]: <targetIP> could not be mapped to an AS and thus the candidate RIPE Atlas boxes have been chosen randomly
• [Random]: No candidate boxes have been found in the same AS as <target-IP> and in the neighbour-ASes. Boxes have thus been chosen randomly

Please note that the lines in this file are tab-separated.