Subj : Re: Network Monitoring
To   : Brian Rogers
From : Wilfred van Velzen
Date : Wed May 26 2021 10:32 pm

Hi Brian,

On 2021-05-26 14:29:00, you wrote to me:

 WvV>> 1) You want to check if your downlinks are connectable.

 WvV>> 2) And August (I think) was looking for a nice way to visualize all
 WvV>> the connections between fidonet systems. So you could see how echo
 WvV>> and netmail flows through the net.

 BR> I would consider doing something as such a breach of security.

Doing 1) or 2) ?

 BR> See my response to John.

I don't see a security issue in doing 1). And for 2) you need the cooperation 
of the node.

 BR> There's also way too many nodes to do this efficiently

That is what I said in my first response to August:

 WvV> his data simply isn't available for fidonet. You would need to have
 WvV> the cooperation of a large number of sysops, to be able to analyse
 WvV> the incoming pkt files on their system in an uniform way, and send
 WvV> the data to a central place where it could be analysed and visualized
 WvV> on a website... Good luck with that! ;-)

 BR> even if you were to ignore the security aspect.

What security aspect?

 WvV>> What's the difference between looking at what's in your outbound, and
 WvV>> notice there are files for a system that have not been send because
 WvV>> your mailer failed to connect to it; or doing a periodic ping to that
 WvV>> system to find out if it's still online?

 BR> Because if I saw a backlog of mail, I'd use another means of communication
 BR> to see what's going on such as an actual voice call or text. Someting any
 BR> computerized automation is unable to accomplish. Monitoring "tools" are
 BR> just that - aids or tools to assist with a specific task.

My point was, the mailer, because it will do automatic periodic polls when it 
can't deliver it's mail, is the monitoring tool. You don't need extra software 
for this to find out a node is offline.

 BR> In Fido or any other FTN, it's simply a hobby not a commercial
 BR> enterprise. We need not care about whether a node or point has a full
 BR> second latency time or a 10 second latency time. That's something more
 BR> for your ISP to monitor and be proactive in resolving so you don't
 BR> have to open a trouble ticket with them... even though most don't <G>

I wasn't talking about latency, that's totally not interesting when it comes to 
delivering mail to nodes. The only interesting bit is, wheather it's online or 
not. And that is easy to find out by looking at the state of your outbound 
directories.

Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.1.0.18-B20170815
 * Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

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