Networking

Seems like k-root servers are having issue again. This is not the first time BSNL is having such issues. Last year I reported issue with K root server (which was actually because of downtime at Delhi node).  

Here’s some data for today’s case:

PING 193.0.14.129 (193.0.14.129) 56(84) bytes of data. 
64 bytes from 193.0.14.129: 
icmp_req=1 ttl=44 time=309 ms 
64 bytes from 193.0.14.129: icmp_req=2 ttl=44 time=312 ms 
64 bytes from 193.0.14.129: icmp_req=3 ttl=44 time=312 ms 
64 bytes from 193.0.14.129: icmp_req=4 ttl=44 time=312 ms 
64 bytes from 193.0.14.129: icmp_req=5 ttl=44 time=313 ms 
--- 193.0.14.129 ping statistics --- 
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4001ms 
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 309.687/312.019/313.333/1.289 ms  

 

One of my friend asked me an interesting question about relating IPv4 with IPv6. His question was: in dual stack setup, if we have IPv4 of a router/host, how can we find IPv6 associated with it?

Well, as far as I know there’s no direct way to relate IPv4 with IPv6 but there’s a nice trick out. Say e.g we have Google Public DNS operating at IPv4 - 8.8.8.8. To find IPv6 address of same server (if it exists at all), we can lookup for reverse DNS to get hostname, 

You might have heard of NKN i.e National Knowledge Network by Govt. of India. Overall idea of NKN was to connect all educational institutions within country including all IIT’s, IIM’s, NIT’s and various govt. universities on fiber at 1Gbps speed. Though little late and crazy way of solving problem, but still NKN is nice effort from Mr Sam Pitroda.

I was talking to a friend from IIT Delhi last week, and here’s his speedtest.net result from his room (yeah room, not any lab!)

Yesterday I read about BSNL increasing speeds from 512Kbps to 1Mbps (with caps). Today I came across news in Business Line about Bharti Airtel increasing speed on wireline DSL. This is really good believe me! I am not refering to little bit increase in speeds, but I am refering to start of competition within ISP’s based on speed. Right now it’s Wireless (3G) Vs Wireline (DSL) players, and I am sure very soon we will see competition within wireline Vs wireline players. Competition is always good specially in telecom industry. We can clearly see where we stand now: from 8years of waiting for a telephone connection to 5min of prepaid sim purchase, from 56Kbps at $1/hour to 10GB data at $20 a month. We have came so far, but yet long way to go!

Quick traceroute between Reliance and Neotel (South African subsidiary of Tata Communications)

Using Reliance Mumbai node: 

You requested a Traceroute from Mumbai (62.216.135.130) to neotel.co.za (41.168.1.110) 

   1 ge-0-2-0.0.pjr02.mmb004.flagtel.com (85.95.25.70) 80.252 ms 79.822 ms 79.737 ms  
   MPLS Label=351552 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1  
   2 so-1-3-0.0.pjr02.hkg005.flagtel.com (85.95.25.118) 79.688 ms 79.717 ms 79.779 ms  
   MPLS Label=301328 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1  
   3 so-5-0-0.0.cjr04.hkg003.flagtel.com (85.95.25.214) 79.790 ms 81.271 ms 84.868 ms  
   MPLS Label=300272 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1  
   4 xe-1-2-0.0.cji01.hkg003.flagtel.com (62.216.128.66) 79.504 ms 79.587 ms 79.452 ms  
   5 62.216.145.194 (62.216.145.194) 85.660 ms 79.769 ms *  
   6 if-2-0-0-1123.core3.HK2-HongKong.as6453.net (216.6.95.137) [AS 6453] 79.930 ms 79.884 ms 79.775 ms  
   7 180.87.15.81 (180.87.15.81) [AS 6453] 295.413 ms 295.675 ms 295.695 ms  
   MPLS Label=300800 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1  
   8 if-5-2.tcore2.CXR-Chennai.as6453.net (180.87.15.70) [AS 6453] 296.944 ms if-2-2.tcore1.SVW-Singapore.as6453.net (180.87.12.1) [AS 6453] 311.951 ms 311.784 ms  
   MPLS Label=299968 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1  
   9 if-3-3.tcore1.CXR-Chennai.as6453.net (180.87.36.5) [AS 6453] 311.636 ms if-5-2.tcore1.CXR-Chennai.as6453.net (180.87.12.54) [AS 6453] 312.689 ms 312.041 ms  
   MPLS Label=300688 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1  
  10 if-4-0-0.core1.CFO-Chennai.as6453.net (180.87.36.18) [AS 6453] 144.922 ms if-15-1-0.core1.CFO-Chennai.as6453.net (180.87.36.14) [AS 6453] 145.223 ms if-4-0-0.core1.CFO-Chennai.as6453.net (180.87.36.18) [AS 6453] 144.627 ms  
   MPLS Label=1578 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1  
  11 116.0.86.1 (116.0.86.1) [AS 6453] 155.796 ms 155.857 ms 154.918 ms  
   MPLS Label=3107 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1  
  12 116.0.86.30 (116.0.86.30) [AS 6453] 341.019 ms 312.304 ms 322.348 ms  
   MPLS Label=306816 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1  
  13 if-2-2.tcore1.JSO-Johannesburg.as6453.net (216.6.55.85) [AS 6453] 312.133 ms 311.860 ms 311.718 ms  
  14 216.6.55.38 (216.6.55.38) [AS 6453] 324.450 ms 295.062 ms 296.033 ms  
  15 41.160.0.243 (41.160.0.243) [AS 36937] 312.371 ms 313.074 ms 311.998 ms  
  16 * * *  
  17 * * *  
  18 * * *

So it’s like Mumbai-India-Reliance | Hong Kong-Reliance | Hong Kong - Tata | Chennai -India-Tata | Somewhere in middle-Europe | Johannesburg - Tata