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crad
SI VIS PACEM PARA BELLUM
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crad

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[Connectivity] ShaperProbe not working

Just tried to run ShaperProbe and it does not connect to server. Anyone else having a similar problem? Thanks for checking.

NetFixer
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said by crad:

Just tried to run ShaperProbe and it does not connect to server. Anyone else having a similar problem? Thanks for checking.

It has been dead for over a week now: »[Connectivity] Shaperprobe "no route to host"

My guess would be that the GA Tech contract/funding for the servers that supported that program has simply terminated because GA Tech is no longer associated with that program (and hasn't been for a couple of years).

mediaguy
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Have had this issue since December, though it has worked a few times since. My guess is that since the client is no longer supported or distributed by GA Tech, the various test server operators are abandoning the service. That said, the very "shaping" the tool was originally designed to probe has been essentially phased out by the ISP's in favor of more sophisticated (and less visible) traffic shaping. I don't have any real info on this, just a so-called 'educated' guess.

Sad to see it go though, it was a surprisingly accurate speed test tool.

Edit: Looks like my neighbor in the "Boro there has beat me to it...

train_wreck
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said by mediaguy:

it was a surprisingly accurate speed test tool.

Meh i never saw it measure anywhere near my ~110-115mbps down connection; it seemed to always have a limitation around ~50mbps for me.

Jim721
join:2014-07-31
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Shaper probe was a ok tool but it was highly dependent on what server you got.

camper
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said by NetFixer:

My guess would be that the GA Tech contract/funding for the servers that supported that program has simply terminated because GA Tech is no longer associated with that program (and hasn't been for a couple of years).

 
Shaperprobe seems to be part of the M-Lab family nowadays.

From the M-Lab FAQ

M-Lab was founded by the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute (OTI), the PlanetLab Consortium, Google Inc. and a large body of academic researchers.



ShaperProbe appears to connect initially to google servers. It is the route within the google address space to those servers that looks to be having issues.

Google's probably become too large to pay attention to those routing issues.....

FureverFurry
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If ShaperProbe is kaputz, does anyone have recommendations for a reliable speed test? The networking guru people on the Comcast forums always recommended ShaperProbe.

Thanks !

andyross
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Try some of the Java-based ones, which are more accurate than Flash-based. I often use the visualware tests. In particular, their Quality test can check for resent packets and other issues (when the server is accessible.)
Another choice is to download a very large file, such as an ISO, from a reliably fast server.

camper
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Looks like there may be resolution sooner than later...

»mailman.nanog.org/piperm ··· 960.html
Central PA
join:2003-07-09
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Central PA

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Excellent! Thanks for the good news, camper.

NetFixer
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said by Central PA:

Excellent! Thanks for the good news, camper.

said by Stephen Stuart :

Unfortunately. the Shaperprobe researchers hard-coded IP addresses in
their experiment for a site that is in the process of being
decommissioned, the M-Lab ops team is working on getting that bit
resolved ASAP.

May be good news, and may not be good news. I suspect that the folks at M-Lab will have to find a way around a copyright issue before they can modify the code for public distribution. GA Tech owns the copyright for ShaperProbe (and "All rights reserved" means just that), and they are no longer involved in the project. And that is the primary reason that the servers are no longer responding -- GA Tech and/or their corporate backers for that project are no longer paying to keep the servers active for the ShaperProbe project (personally I am very surprised that everything continued to work for as long as it did after the project was terminated).



camper
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said by NetFixer:

I suspect that the folks at M-Lab will have to find a way around a copyright issue before they can modify the code for public distribution.

 
You're looking in the wrong place. It looks like that copyright does not appear anywhere besides that Windows binary file.

What I did find, however, was the standard GNU license in the source code, which I copy here from one of the source files.


/*
This file is part of Diffprobe.

Diffprobe is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

Diffprobe is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with pathload; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
*/



That's in all the source files that I checked. So M-Labs can use the source code so long as they comply with the GNU license.

NetFixer
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said by camper:

You're looking in the wrong place. It looks like that copyright does not appear anywhere besides that Windows binary file.

What I did find, however, was the standard GNU license in the source code...

It would not be the first time that former colleagues had IP rights disputes over the same software. Remember the SCO vs Novel debacle over IP rights for UNIX and Linux?

I also have copies of the source code, and I can see the GNU license there. I can also clearly see the "LegalCopyright" statement in shapertool.rc in the win32 source code (code that I just downloaded again today to make sure that there had not been changes to the "LegalCopyright" statement):
said by shapertool.rc :


BEGIN
BLOCK "StringFileInfo"
BEGIN
BLOCK "040904e4"
BEGIN
VALUE "Comments", "Traffic detection in ISPs."
VALUE "CompanyName", "Georgia Institute of Technology"
VALUE "FileDescription", "ShaperProbe"
VALUE "FileVersion", "2.0.0.1"
VALUE "InternalName", "shaperprobe.exe"
VALUE "LegalCopyright", "(c) Georgia Institute of Techonology. All rights res erved."
VALUE "OriginalFilename", "shaperprobe.exe"
VALUE "ProductName", "ShaperProbe"
VALUE "ProductVersion", "2.0.0.1"
END
END
BLOCK "VarFileInfo"
BEGIN
VALUE "Translation", 0x409, 1252
END
END


The "LegalCopyright" statement "(c) Georgia Institute of Techonology. All rights reserved." would not be in the win32 source code or executable unless there was a reason for it being there. If I can easily see that copyright claim (in both the win32 source code and in the currently distributed win32 executable), so can M-Lab's lawyers. Perhaps Partha, M-Lab, and GA Tech did indeed come to an amicable understanding that gave IP rights to Partha and/or M-Lab after GA Tech terminated its participation in the ShaperProbe project. But I think it is quite clear that even if there is a gentleman's agreement to that effect, neither Partha or M-Labs bothered to continue the funding required to keep the network of servers active after the GA Tech sponsorship ceased.

camper
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camper

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What is interesting here is that the GNU license is not present in any of the source code files for Windows, while the same-named source code files for both Linux and OSX have the GNU license terminology present.

So the "LegalCopyright" may be effective only if the original Windows source code is used, and it may be effective only for that .rc file because none of the other files in the Windows distribution have any sort of copyright associated with them.

In any case, all M-Labs needs to do is start from the Linux source code which has the GNU license on it and create a Windows version from there. Not a big deal.

NetFixer
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said by camper:

In any case, all M-Labs needs to do is start from the Linux source code which has the GNU license on it and create a Windows version from there. Not a big deal.

I don't think that SCO thought it was a big deal when they started demanding paid licenses from Linux users either; but IP ownership when multiple parties are involved, can get very complex very quickly. And universities are known to be very protective of what they perceive as their IP rights.

However, whatever the status of the actual IP ownership of the ShaperProbe application, I think it is obvious that GA Tech's departure from active participation in the ShaperProbe program over all, is why the server support has disappeared. Both Partha and M-Lab dropped the ball on that front; depending on Google to continue to provide servers for a dead university program was not a good decision.

rolfp
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rolfp

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From what I read here:
»www.majordojo.com/2010/0 ··· ight.php
and here:
»twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/B ··· 201207x1
it appears to me that, if diffprobe/shaperprobe were published under GPL, any modification of it is, also, available under GPL. Any IP or copyright concern comes in when trying to release the work under a different license. Ergo, it's all still GPL.

camper
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said by NetFixer:

However, whatever the status of the actual IP ownership of the ShaperProbe application,

 
The ownership is not in question. Georgia Tech has the copyright, they own the source code.

The point I've been making is that for the source code files containing the GPL license, Georgia Tech has allowed some specific uses of the code via the GPL License.

Let me give you a different example. I write open source code. When I release the code on to an unsuspecting public, I put my copyright on each source code module. I also place the BSD license wording under my copyright notice.

I still retain ownership of the source code I write, but the BSD license gives others certain specified rights to use my code according to the terms of the BSD license.

Getting back to shaperprobe, Georgia Tech still retains IP ownership for shaperprobe. However, for the source code files that have the GPL license in them, Georgia Tech have allowed others to use the source code in any manner that is compliant with the GPL license.

Part of the GPL license requires the person or entity using the code to make available any changes made to the source code.

A real life example: Sony uses GPL licensed code in its televisions (in short, Sony TVs run Linux). You can download the source code for Sony's television from this link:
»products.sel.sony.com/op ··· tv.shtml

That's how the GPL license works.

telcodad
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telcodad

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FYI - Just saw this on Jason Livingood's (jlivingood See Profile) twitter feed:

From: »twitter.com/jlivingood/s ··· 81802496
quote:
Confirming my feedback a few months ago - M-Lab Shaperprobe is going away. Per M-Lab, they will officially decommission Shaperpobe 5/11/2015

— Jason Livingood (@jlivingood) May 11, 2015



camper
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It's sad to see shaperprobe be retired. It was nice having a scriptable command-line speed testing utility that ran on many OS's.....

B4Knight
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join:2014-03-20
Colon, MI

B4Knight

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Is there an alternative? Is Glasnost reliable for testing shaping of traffic?