pchar (8)

pchar [ -cChnqSvV ] [ -a analysis ] [ -b burst ] [ -d debug ] [ -g gap ] [ -H hops ] [ -i interface ] [ -I increment ] [ -l origin ] [ -m mtu ] [ -M mode ] [ -p protocol ] [ -P port ] [ -R reps ] [ -s hop ] [ -t timeout ] [ -w file ] -r file | host

Pchar measures the characteristics of the network path between two Internet hosts, on either IPv4 or IPv6 networks. It is an independently-written reimplementation of the pathchar utility, using similar algorithms. Both programs measure network throughput and round-trip time by sending varying-sized UDP packets into the network and waiting for ICMP messages in response. Like traceroute, they modulate the IPv4 time-to-live (TTL) field or the IPv6 hop limit field to get measurements at different distances along a path.

In its default mode, a run of pchar over a short path might produce an output that looks like this:

pchar to dancer.ca.sandia.gov (146.246.246.1) using UDP/IPv4
Packet size increments by 32 to 1500
46 test(s) per repetition
32 repetition(s) per hop
 0:
    Partial loss:      0 / 1472 (0%)
    Partial char:      rtt = 0.657235 ms, (b = 0.000358 ms/B), r2 = 0.989713
                       stddev rtt = 0.004140, stddev b = 0.000006
    Hop char:          rtt = 0.657235 ms, bw = 22333.268771 Kbps
    Partial queueing:  avg = 0.000150 ms (418 bytes)
 1: 146.246.243.254 (con243.ca.sandia.gov)
    Partial loss:      0 / 1472 (0%)
    Partial char:      rtt = 0.811278 ms, (b = 0.000454 ms/B), r2 = 0.995401
                       stddev rtt = 0.003499, stddev b = 0.000005
    Hop char:          rtt = 0.154043 ms, bw = 83454.764777 Kbps
    Partial queueing:  avg = 0.000153 ms (336 bytes)
 2: 146.246.250.251 (slcon1.ca.sandia.gov)
    Partial loss:      0 / 1472 (0%)
    Partial char:      rtt = 1.044412 ms, (b = 0.002161 ms/B), r2 = 0.999658
                       stddev rtt = 0.004533, stddev b = 0.000006
    Hop char:          rtt = 0.233133 ms, bw = 4686.320952 Kbps
    Partial queueing:  avg = 0.000100 ms (46 bytes)
 3: 146.246.246.1 (dancer.ca.sandia.gov)
    Path length:       3 hops
    Path char:         rtt = 1.044412 ms, r2 = 0.999658
    Path bottleneck:   4686.320952 Kbps
    Path pipe:         611 bytes
    Path queueing:     average = 0.000100 ms (46 bytes)

The path here passes through three hops. Each hop consists of four lines of output: Partial loss documents the number and percentage of probe packets that were lost during the probes for that hop. The partial char line shows the estimated round-trip time from the probing host through the current hop. The hop char line shows estimates of the round-trip time and bandwidth for the current hop. Finally, the partial queueing shows an estimate of the average queueing along the path, up to and including the current hop.

Between each hop, pchar prints the IP address and (if known) name of the host/router at the end of the link.

After the last hop (usually the target host), pchar prints statistics on the entire path, including the path length and path pipe (the latter is an estimate of the delay-bandwidth product of the path).

Pchar has another mode of operation, called trout (short for “tiny traceroute”). In this mode, packets of random sizes (one packet per hop diameter) are sent along the path to a destination. No attempt at estimating link properties is made; however, this mode is extremely fast. It is intended for use as a part of a larger measurement infrastructure. The output from this mode might look like:

trout to bmah-freebsd-1.cisco.com (171.70.84.44) using ICMP/IPv4 (raw sockets)
Packet size increments from 28 to 1500 by 32
 0: 171.70.84.42 (bmah-freebsd-0.cisco.com)
 1: 171.70.84.44 (bmah-freebsd-1.cisco.com) 352 -> 352 bytes: 0.318 ms

-a analysis

Set analysis type. Current choices are lsq (the default), which uses a minimum filter followed by a least sum-of-squares fit to estimate link bandwidths, kendall, which uses the same minimum filter followed by a linear fit based on Kendall's test statistic, lms, which does a minimum filter followed by a least median of squares fit, and lmsint, which is an implementation of the lms computations using only integer arithmetic.

-b burst

Set the size of packet bursts. A burst parameter > 1 will result in some number of ICMP_ECHOREPLY packets sent before the probe packet to induce queueing. These packets are useful for measuring store-and-forward switched subnets, but make measurements of fast links behind bottlenecks inaccurate.

-c

Ignore routing changes detected during running. Normally, pchar will exit if it receives responses from more than one host for a given hop, assuming that this condition is caused by a routing transient. However, certain load-balancing schemes can also cause this condition. In such situations, using the -c option may be useful.

-C

Use pcap(3) packet capture library (this must have been enabled at configure time). Note that this option must be specified to enable TCP-based probes.

-d debug

Sets debugging output level. Generally not useful except to the developer.

-g gap

Set the mean inter-probe gap in seconds. The default is 0.25, which results in approximately four probes per second being run. Care should be taken not to decrease this gap by too much, in order to avoid flooding the network. The default value here is deliberately conservative; users with the need or desire to probe more quickly are presumed to have at least perused the documentation for the relevant command-line options.

-G gaptype

Set distribution used to select interprobe gap times. Current alternatives are fixed (the default) and exp, which picks gap times from an exponential distribution. The latter option is an attempt to simulate a Poisson process of probe packets (a lot of aliteration), however due to the fact that each probe experiment takes a non-zero amount of time, this is only an approximation.

-H hops

Set the maximum number of hops that pchar will probe into the network. The default maximum is 30 hops, the same as with pathchar and traceroute.

-h

Print usage information.

-i interface

Set the interface to listen on for the -C option.

-I increment

Set the probe packet size increment. Pchar will send IP packets with sizes that are integer multiples of increment, up to the maximum specified by the -m option. The default is a 32-byte increment. Small increments should produce more accurate results, but will result in more probes (thus taking longer to run).

-l origin

Set the local source of probe packets. This option is mostly useful on multi-homed hosts. If not specified, it defaults to the value of hostname(3). Note that this option must be used if the local hostname cannot be resolved to an IPv4 or IPv6 address.

-m mtu

Set the maximum probe packet size. This value should be no larger than the path MTU between the two hosts. The default is 1500 bytes, the Ethernet MTU.

-M mode

Set operational mode. The normal operational mode is pchar, which uses active probes to characterize the bandwidth, latency, loss, and queueing of the links comprising a path. Another mode is trout, a “tiny traceroute” that is intended to be used as a portion of a larger network management infrastructure.

-n

Don't attempt to resolve host addresses to names.

-p protocol

Select protocol to use. Current options are: ipv4udp (UDP over IPv4), ipv4raw (UDP over IPv4, using raw IP packets), ipv4icmp (ICMP over IPv4, using raw IP packets), ipv4tcp (TCP over IPv4, using raw IP packets), ipv6icmp (ICMPv6 over IPv6, using raw IP packets), and ipv6udp (UDP over IPv6). The default protocol is either ipv4udp or ipv6udp, as appropriate to the network-layer address associated with the hostname provided. Compared with ipv4udp, the implementation of ipv4raw offers finer control over the contents of packet fields, but is otherwise identical. Note that the ipv6icmp and ipv6udp options are only available if IPv6 support was compiled into pchar, which can be selected at configure time. Finally, the ipv4tcp option requires that pcap(3) support be specified at configure time and enabled with the -C option.

-P port

Select starting UDP port number (the default is 32768). Pchar uses consecutive port numbers starting from this value, counting up. Care should be taken not to use port numbers that are actually in use by network services.

-q

Quiet mode, suppressing all output. Useful if writing statistics to standard out (see the -w option).

-r file

Read measurements in from a file named file, as written by the -w option. This option is useful for experimenting with different analysis algorithms over a fixed data set.

-R reps

Set the number of repetitions of each probe packet size to be sent. The default is 32 packets of each size. Smaller values speed up testing, at the expense of accuracy.

-s hop

Set the starting hop at which to begin probing. The default is 1, so network probing will begin at the host adjacent to the host where pchar is being run. Larger values allow probing to begin farther out from the testing host; this can be helpful when attempting to probe outside a local internetwork whose characterisics are well-known.

-S

Do SNMP queries at each hop to determine each router's idea of what it thinks its next-hop interface characteristics are. Use of this features requires the UCD SNMP library, as well as enabling at configure-time using --with-snmp.

-t timeout

Set the amount of time (in seconds) that pchar will wait for an ICMP error message before declaring a packet loss. The default is 3 seconds.

-T tos

Set the IP Type Of Service bits for outgoing UDP packets. This option isn't terribly useful for a lot of people, but it can be used, for example, to force a particular DiffServ codepoint within networks that support this functionality. For values of -p that use IPv6 as a network-layer protocol, this option sets the traffic class field in the IPv6 header according to RFC 2460.

-v

Verbose mode. While each probe is in progress, print a synopsis of the hop number, repetition, and probe packet size on standard out. Verbose mode mimicks the output of pathchar.

-V

Print version and copyright information and exit.

-w file

Write statistics to a datafile named file. This file can be read back in by specifying the -r option in a subsequent run of pchar for off-line analysis, or parsed by other programs for plotting, etc.

• If file is given as

  - , then the statistics are written to standard out. In this case, the quiet flag -q may be useful, to avoid cluttering the standard output stream.

pcap(3), ping(8), traceroute(8), pathchar(8)

Because pchar relies on measurements to drive its estimates of network characteristics, it may occasionally produce some seemingly odd results. Care should be taken when interpreting the output of pchar. For example, the coeffecients of determination for the least squares fit can be useful in seeing how “good” of a fit the bandwidth and round-trip time parameters describe the performance seen by the probe packets. The coefficient of determination takes values from 0 to 1, where a value of 1 indicates that the estimated parameters perfectly fit the data.

Pchar was originally named pc, which was either an abbreviation for “path characteristics” or “pathchar clone”.

Pathchar automatically determines an appropriate maximum packet size to use, based on a Path MTU discovery algorithm. Pchar relies on the user specifying the maximum packet size manually.

Some versions of Solaris rate-limit the generation of ICMP error messages. Any run of pchar through, or to, a Solaris machine may show abnormally high packet loss rates. This feature of Solaris affects traceroute and pathchar as well, but not ping. Some versions of Linux appear to have similar rate-limiting. In situations such as this, the use of ICMP-based probes (selected by the -p option) may yield more satisfactory (or at least faster) results.

Timestamps printed after each run are printed relative to the local time zone. Timestamps saved in trace files are expressed as seconds past the epoch.

There are way too many command-line options.

Bruce A. Mah <[email protected]>. The author of the original pathchar utility is Van Jacobson <[email protected]>. The algorithms used by pchar were coded from Van Jacobson's viewgraphs describing the operation of pathchar.