TY - GEN
T1 - Off-path round trip time measurement via TCP/IP side channels
AU - Alexander, Geoffrey
AU - Crandall, Jedidiah R.
PY - 2015/8/21
Y1 - 2015/8/21
N2 - We present a novel technique for estimating the round trip time network latency between two off-path end hosts. That is, given two arbitrary machines, A and B, on the Internet, our technique measures the round trip time from A to B. We take advantage of information side-channels that are present in the TCP/IP network stack of modern Linux kernels to infer information about off-path routes. Compared to previous tools, ours does not require additional resources, machines, or require additional protocols beyond TCP. The only requirements are that one end host have an open port and be running a modern Linux kernel and that the other end host responds to unsolicited SYN-ACK packets with a RST packet. We evaluate our technique 'in the wild' and compare our off-path estimates to on-path measurements. Our experiments show that our technique provides accurate, real-time estimates of off-path network latency. In over 80% of measurements our technique provides off-path round trip time measurements within 20% of the actual round trip time. We also discuss possible causes of errors that impact the accuracy of our measurements.
AB - We present a novel technique for estimating the round trip time network latency between two off-path end hosts. That is, given two arbitrary machines, A and B, on the Internet, our technique measures the round trip time from A to B. We take advantage of information side-channels that are present in the TCP/IP network stack of modern Linux kernels to infer information about off-path routes. Compared to previous tools, ours does not require additional resources, machines, or require additional protocols beyond TCP. The only requirements are that one end host have an open port and be running a modern Linux kernel and that the other end host responds to unsolicited SYN-ACK packets with a RST packet. We evaluate our technique 'in the wild' and compare our off-path estimates to on-path measurements. Our experiments show that our technique provides accurate, real-time estimates of off-path network latency. In over 80% of measurements our technique provides off-path round trip time measurements within 20% of the actual round trip time. We also discuss possible causes of errors that impact the accuracy of our measurements.
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U2 - 10.1109/INFOCOM.2015.7218538
DO - 10.1109/INFOCOM.2015.7218538
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84954243474
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE INFOCOM
SP - 1589
EP - 1597
BT - 2015 IEEE Conference on Computer Communications, IEEE INFOCOM 2015
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 34th IEEE Annual Conference on Computer Communications and Networks, IEEE INFOCOM 2015
Y2 - 26 April 2015 through 1 May 2015
ER -