Configuration Help Pages

The configuration page allows the user to tune the measurements done by a test-box. With the form on the configuration page, the user can modify the targets for the measurements, the rate (number of packets sent per hour), packet size and, in the future, other parameters. Once a change has been made, it will automatically be propagated to the other test-boxes. Note that this can take up to several hours.

Measurement Relations

A measurement relation defines all parameters for a measurement between 2 test-boxes, such as rate, packet size and others. There can be more than 1 measurement relation between two test-boxes, for example, when one wants to send packets with different sizes. According to the origin, there are 3 distinct Measurement Relation types:

• TTM-Operator: defined by the TTM operators at the RIPE NCC. These cannot be modified by any user.
• Local Host: defined by the local test-box host, i.e. the owner of this test-box.
• Remote Host: defined by the remote test-box host, i.e. the owner of the other test-box.

The current settings table shows all measurement relations for a test-box. The entries are color-coded in order to identify them:

• TTM-Operator is Black
• Local-Host is Blue
• Remote-Host is Purple

The table has 4 columns:

• Target: test box name
• Packet Length: packet size (in bytes) used in the measurement
• Rate: frequency (packets/hour) used in the measurement
• Status of the target box:
• ON: The other test-box is online and sending data,
• OFF: The test-box is offline and not sending data, and
• *: New Measurements that have not be propagated to the other test-box.

A host can change his test box relation group by editing the Current Settings table. In order to add a Measurement Relation select one target in the pop-up menu list, fill in a packet length and a rate then mouse-click on the ADD button. If no packet length or rate is specified the default values are used. In order to delete a Measurement Relation fill in with a target, packet length and rate you want to deleted and mouse-click on DEL. New measurement relations are only accepted when:

• The packet length is between 60 and 1500 bytes, but see the remarks below.
• The rate is smaller than 1800 (or, on average, 1 packet every other second).

Important Remarks:

• In general, very little can be learned from varying the packet sizes while different packet sizes do make the analysis more complicated. It is therefore recommended to the standard value of 100 bytes.
• The Total volume shows the average outgoing data volume in bits per second. Please make sure that this does not exceed the capacity of your outgoing links.
• If new a Measurement Relation is defined with all parameters except the rate identical to an existing Measurement Relation, then one of the following can happen:
• the new Measurement Relation replaces the old one if it has a higher Rate
• nothing if new Measurement Relation has a lower Rate
• when the new Measurement Relation with higher Rate is deleted the old one with lower Rate is restored