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WEB100 release notes
Matt Mathis
January 2003
This is 2.2 release of web100 software for Linux 2.4.* kernels.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
WARNING: Please note that this release does not address a number of
security issues and is not intended for machines with
untrusted users. In the current implementation any user is
allowed to read and modify any TCP connection on the system.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Supported Linux versions
This release supports only Linux kernel version 2.4.20
The people present at the user group meetings were not interested in any
further support for 2.2.* kernels. There was some interest in support for
2.4 kernel versions that match major CD pressing, but nearly everybody
expressed a preference for web100 to stay current with the newest Linux
kernels.
In response to this advice we have restructured our source management to
decouple code development from back-porting web100 to older base kernels.
This will permit the developers to more easily track new kernels and
permit us to delegate the back-porting to another team. If people have
strong needs for specific older base kernels, we will recruit volunteers
to do the back-porting.
In addition, we have decoupled the kernel distributions from tools and
applications distribution. This will permit us to offer these releases
asynchronously in a less constrained way.
================================================================
In general web100 releases have three goals:
Provide documentation and sample code to co-developers, so that
they can contribute additional diagnostic tools.
To get web100 into the hands of some application developers and
users who are sufficiently network savvy to help us detect
possible adverse environmental impact. Please see the Requested
feedback section at the end of this note for the kind of
information we are interested in.
To collect feedback to help us make web100 more suitable for
non-expert users, so we can usefully release web100 code to
non-networking-experts who need the code.
================================================================
Software and Documentation Map
README.web100 - This file
CHANGES.web100 - Document containing the changes/revision information
web100-*.patch - Patch file for the kernel
Install.web100 - Instructions for building and installing the kernel.
tcp-kis.txt - TCP Kernel Instrument Set document. This document describes
the instrumentation in the TCP/IP stack in the kernel and is
the basis of all the tools and instruments in this release.
ietf-*-XX.txt - MIB document submitted to IETF
This distribution contains only the kernel related software
patches and documents. User level software and documentation
is distributed separately as "userland" distribution. In
general, this distribution should be used in conjunction with
the userland distribution.
In addition to the documents mentioned above, application and
tool developers should view the following documents that will
become available after installing the kernel:
Kernel Documents (in the patched kernel source tree):
- Documentation/web100/sysctl.txt:
Describes the sysctl variables controlling Web100 functionality.
- Documentation/web100/proc_interface.txt:
This document provides a description of the current kernel
implementation of web100 and the implementation of API
through /proc.
- Documentation/web100/locking.txt:
Provides brief documentation on locking issues
In addition to the documents that are included in the kernel
distribution, application and tool developers should find the
developer's guide and user's guide that are provided with userland
distribution very helpful.
================================================================
Community Support
We have established email lists and web pages as the principal means
for supporting the web100 community.
Please use "discussion@web100.org" to communicate with other web100
testers like yourself and our support staff. This is the best address
for general advice and discussion about web100, since your messages are
likely to stimulate ideas in others. Please visit:
http://internal.web100.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion to add yourself
to the discussion mailing list, to view archives or to manage your
subscription(s).
Please use "support@web100.org" if you wish to communicate with just
the support staff. This is the best address for conversations that
could be distracting to other testers.
Please visit internal.web100.org to get updates, news, archives, track
bug reports and more. In the future this site will be the primary
location to obtain updated documentation and new releases. Please
register a user ID.
For information on known bugs please see
https://internal.web100.org/bugs/?group_id=3
Please send us you suggestions!
================================================================
Copyrights
All documentation and programs in this release is copyright (c)
Carnegie Mellon University, The Board of Trustees of the University of
Illinois, and University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, 2001.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY.
The kernel changes and additions are also covered by the GPL version 2.
Since our code is currently under active development we prefer
that everyone gets it directly from us. This will permit us
to collaborate with all users. So for the time being, please
refer potential users to us instead of redistributing web100.
================================================================
Requested feedback from user of web100:
We are very much interested in your feedback. Please do not hesitate to
drop us a note with comments and/or suggestions (support@web100.org).
Please let us know about your experiences on the installation process. We
have only tested the process on a limited number of hardware and software
configurations, and may have unintended interactions with some NICs, other
network options or higher layer protocols or services that we may not have
tested. In these situations, it will be very helpful if you include the
details of your hardware and software configurations as suggested in the
Install.web100 document.
We are looking for evidence of possible negative impact to the Internet
from well tuned TCP flows. We have already observed a small number of
situations where a single well tuned web100 TCP flow adversely affected
other network users. This is expected because the measures outlined in
RFC2309 ("Recommendations on Queue Management and Congestion Control in
the Internet", http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2309.txt) have not been
widely deployed. That paper also predicts a number of symptoms
including "lock-out" and "full queues" both of which have been observed
in some context with web100.
We are looking for some way to gage the extent of these problems. As
a first step we ask that all alpha testers monitor for any potential
negative impact caused by web100. If you observe any negative impact,
please document and report it to us. We would like to be able to
reconstruct some of the circumstances.
In addition to the request for feedback on the kernel implementation, we
would like you to provide feedback on the tools and applications
distributed as userland release. Please see feedback section in that
distribution for more specific information on the type of feedback
we would like you to provide.
================================================================
ACKNOWLEDGMENT:
This material is based in whole or in part on work supported by
the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0083285. Any
opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in
this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).