[atlas] Encouraging people to upgrade software probe versions

On Mon, 30 Jan 2023 at 17:34, Ernst J. Oud <ernstoud at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Lukas,
>
> Keep in mind that - as I experienced - any VM or Docker container introduces
> some problems, such as higher latency. My CentOS VM has 2 ms. higher
> latency in the first hop compared to a v5 probe on the same fiber.

Any virtualization may introduce variables, any WAN circuit, any
Firewall and any NAT device.

Whether the ATLAS SW probe runs as a "native install" on a virtualized
VM managed by you, or whether the ATLAS SW probe runs in a VM managed
by RIPE doesn't make a difference in your latency deviation example.

We need to stomach 2 ms of deviation if we want to allow SW probes,
the alternative is to go HW only.


> And a bug in Docker causes traceroute to fail.

Docker is probably not the way to go, containers make it more easy to
install, but I don't think a container can trigger its own upgrade.


> So a hardware or a native install of a software probe is the best way to go.

I disagree, unmaintained and unsupported probe installation can never
be the way to go.



Lukas