Static in the Ether

Some two and a half hours into the FF3.0 download campaign, and the toll is beginning to show.spreadfirefox.com seems to be refusing connections. While individual mirror sites seem up, it looks like the counts are going via some redirector script. getfirefox.com is however working fine.

The impact its having on mirrors seems to be quite intense. The following two images sow traffic stats from mirror.ac.za the mirror service run by TENET here in South Africa.

Update:

A Firefox 3.0 download counter is now available. 943806 currently averaging some 7000/minute. Some commentary on the outages, although they seem to have cleared.

With Nick now in Grahamstown, development on the Hilbert Curve application has progressed well. Version 4.05 has been released around a month after the 2.05 edition previously mentioned, which is heading much closer towards completion. The unix build scripts still need to be integrated, but there has been much improvement. The most noticeable improvements are in the processing speed new around 90 seconds for a datafile of 53 million Addresses, and its ability to put out some very high res images (4096×4096) when working with higher order curves. At this resolution we are able to present a single pixel as representing a class C network or in effect 256 individual IP addresses. The updated release also allows for the application of image overlays when in interactive mode, which can make navigation significantly easier.

A sample of the kind of output is seen below (full resolution image is 990K) which shows destination IP addresses harvested from the Albany Schools Cache server during January through May 2008:


A plot of 53 million packets from the CAIDA telescope project - 27 Feb 2007 midnight to 6am:





With these higher resolution images available, analysis can be performed at a much finer grained level.

After a couple of false starts, Rhodes University has finally transitioned off the older Telkom Provides Gen2 ( although for the last few months we have been using the Telkom commercial Internet Service) to the New TENET Gen3 network being serviced by Neotel, and Internet Solutions. Probably the biggest difference is that TENET now gets a Layer 2 service  with the net network rather than the Layer 3 which they previously had.

A almost unnoticeable transition, thanks to the hard work of the Rhodes and Neotel teams.

Before:

$ traceroute www.google.com
traceroute to www.l.google.com (64.233.183.147)
1  ict.gw.ru.ac.za (146.231.120.1)  0.533 ms  0.370 ms  0.364 ms
2  core-struben.gw.ru.ac.za (146.231.0.2)  0.363 ms  0.212 ms  0.363 ms
3  tenet.gw.ru.ac.za (192.42.99.1)  1.139 ms  1.143 ms  1.141 ms
4  * * *
5  196.43.9.54 (196.43.9.54)  182.751 ms  179.151 ms  189.128 ms
6  83.245.76.221 (83.245.76.221)  184.445 ms  201.326 ms  190.072 ms
7  209.85.252.42 (209.85.252.42)  175.554 ms  176.190 ms  176.808 ms
8  216.239.43.123 (216.239.43.123)  322.346 ms  190.382 ms  221.579 ms
9  72.14.233.79 (72.14.233.79)  191.322 ms
72.14.233.77 (72.14.233.77)  193.961 ms  193.978 ms
10  209.85.249.133 (209.85.249.133)  306.756 ms
216.239.43.30 (216.239.43.30)  194.754 ms
216.239.43.34 (216.239.43.34)  227.038 ms
11  nf-in-f147.google.com (64.233.183.147)  214.869 ms  229.846 ms  221.110 ms

Currently:

$ traceroutewww.l.google.com
traceroute to www.l.google.com (64.233.183.147)
 1  ict.gw.ru.ac.za (146.231.120.1)  0.538 ms  0.377 ms  0.376 ms
 2  core-struben.gw.ru.ac.za (146.231.0.2)  0.222 ms  0.382 ms  0.364 ms
 3  tenet.gw.ru.ac.za (192.42.99.1)  1.138 ms  0.988 ms  1.297 ms
 4  unknown.uni.net.za (155.232.145.83)  18.314 ms  16.744 ms  17.523 ms
 5  unknown.uni.net.za (155.232.145.226)  17.519 ms  17.838 ms  16.119 ms
 6  unknown.uni.net.za (196.32.209.25)  193.022 ms  207.077 ms  189.129 ms
 7  ldn-tch-i1-link.telia.net (213.248.79.193)  187.563 ms  188.824 ms  193.184 ms
 8  ldn-b1-link.telia.net (80.91.250.209)  189.126 ms  186.783 ms  190.687 ms
 9  ldn-bb2-link.telia.net (80.91.248.94)  192.086 ms  188.977 ms  188.036 ms
10  adm-bb2-pos6-0-0.telia.net (213.248.65.158)  210.237 ms  197.275 ms  200.360 ms
11  adm-b1-link.telia.net (80.91.252.21)  202.852 ms  197.879 ms  206.444 ms
12  google-ic-126116-adm-b1.c.telia.net (80.239.193.182)  203.944 ms  242.015 ms  205.974 ms
13  209.85.251.12 (209.85.251.12)  233.273 ms
    209.85.251.14 (209.85.251.14)  208.804 ms  206.761 ms
14  209.85.248.79 (209.85.248.79)  223.135 ms  210.032 ms  209.098 ms
15  * 72.14.233.79 (72.14.233.79)  230.516 ms  226.125 ms
16  209.85.249.129 (209.85.249.129)  243.568 ms
    216.239.43.34 (216.239.43.34)  230.785 ms
    209.85.249.129 (209.85.249.129)  210.033 ms
17  nf-in-f147.google.com (64.233.183.147)  221.588 ms  210.659 ms  211.602 ms

So a few more hops but much the same. Now to sit tight for the next 13 months until the SeaCom cable hopefully comes onstream!