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- Network Working Group Edward Taft (PARC-MAXC)
- Request for Comments: 618 Feb 1974
- NIC #21989
-
-
- A Few Observations on NCP Statistics
-
-
- The NCP in use at HARV-10, CMU-10A, and CMU-10B collects a number of
- operating and error statistics, which may be typed out on demand by
- any user by means of the 'IMP ERROR' command, as shown on the sample
- typescript.
-
- The figures shown cover the period since the system was last
- restarted. They are not logged or recorded in any more permanent
- form due to extremely limited on-line storage at HARV-10. where
- the software was implemented. However, due to the small size of
- the system and infrequent monitor development work, HARV-10 tends
- to stay up for periods approaching the interval between hardware
- maintenance, which is one week. The attached output was obtained
- after 168 hours system uptime.
-
-
- There are a few things I would like to point out that may be of
- interest to NCP implementers.
-
-
- First, note that the number of discarded (unexpected) RFNMs is equal
- to the number of simulated (timed out) RFNMs. This has been the case
- almost every time I have looked at these statistics. It suggests
- that the RFNMs are not being lost but are rather delayed beyond the
- NCP timeout interval, which I believe is 30 seconds.
-
- I have heard talk among a few people in the Network community
- about "lost RFNMs", and would like to suggest this as a possible
- alternative explanation. Perhaps longer timeouts are in order.
-
-
- Second, the observed ratio of received allocates to transmitted
- allocates (on the order of two to one) is also fairly typical. I
- believe this reflects differences in allocation strategies among
- various hosts.
-
- Many hosts appear to send out an allocate for every data message
- received. While this is reasonable for connections such as FTP
- data transfer connections, it imposes considerable extra traffic
- in the case of the single character messages that seem to be the
- most common on the network.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- -1-
-
-
- The strategy used by the Harvard NCP is to assign a "desired level
- of allocation" figure to each socket (typically quite small for
- Telnet connections and large for FTP data connections; it is a
- user program settable parameter). When the actual allocation for
- the socket falls below 50% of this level, enough additional
- allocation is sent to bring it up to the full "desired level".
-
- The effect of this strategy is to significantly reduce the number
- of allocates returned for a given number of small messages
- received. This reduces both network traffic and control message
- overhead at the other end. The strategy has no effect on FTP data
- messages, since each message is usually large enough to reduce
- outstanding allocation by at least half at a single blow.
-
-
- Finally, I should remark on the appallingly large number of NOPs
- received (typically 25% of all control messages). Most of these seem
- to be piggy-backed onto other control messages, so the situation is
- not as awful as the figures would indicate. Nevertheless, I am
- forced to wonder why anyone would want to send so many.
-
-
-
-
-
-
- TELNET typescript file started at THU 31 JAN 74 428:05
-
- #harv-10 (settings loaded) is complete.#
-
- Harvard 5.06A-18 7:28:38
- Type "HELP" if you need it.
-
- .login 62,#
- JOB 2 Harvard 5.06A-18 TTY25
- Your name please (last name first): Taft
- You are logged in as 62,404000
- 0728 31-Jan-74 Thur
- SCHEDULED PM ON THURSDAYS, 0830-1200 EOT
-
- .imp error
-
- NCP version 1573.1604 operating statistics
-
- 07:29:02 31-JAN-74
-
-
- NCP (link 0) message errors:
- Socket not found: 2184
-
-
-
-
-
- -2-
-
-
- Improper state: 323
- Illegal message type: 2
- Last discarded allocation from PARC-MAXC (XEROX) link 12
- Timed-out exec ICPs: 3
-
- NCP messages:
- Type Received Sent
- NOP 81850 0
- RTS 3688 2507
- STR 2388 3562
- CLS 6055 6059
- ALL 183050 101442
- GVB 772 0
- RET 0 772
- INS 109 0
- ECO 7472 15426
- ERP 15065 7472
- ERR 2 0
- RST 2782 226
- RRP 162 2782
-
- Received NCP error messages:
- Type Count
- 4 2
-
- Most recent error: type 4 from UCLA-CCN
- Data (octal) 4 74 0 10 0 0 74 254 0 200
- (decimal) 4 60 0 8 0 0 60 172 0 128
-
- IMP data message faults:
- Hardware fault: 2
- Link not found: 8
- Discarded RFNMs: 10
- Simulated (timed out) RFNMs: 10
-
- Received IMP messages:
- Regular 590812
- Err w/o id 3
- NOP 4
- RFNM 490095
- Dest dead 366
- Inc trans 52
- IMP reset 2
-
- Histogram of received data message sizes
- Bits Count
- <1 3
- <16 146834
- <32 39751
-
-
-
-
-
- -3-
-
-
- <64 7044
- <128 196983
- <256 46099
- <512 147609
- <1024 534
- <2048 1820
- <4096 1152
- <8192 2979
-
- 72 free buffers
- 7% average buffer utilization
-
- .kjob/k
- Job 2, User [62,404000] Logged off TTY25 0729 31-Jan-74
- Runtime 0 Min, 03.29 Sec
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