Debuglets: an Inter-Domain Telemetry and Debugging Framework

Abstract

After decades since the coming of the Internet, debugging issues between different domains remains a challenge. Only rudimental primitives are usually available to other network participants, such as the ICMP-based ping command, or the already-running applications. Even if some sophisticated tools have been built over the years, they are not always sufficiently powerful to quickly experiment, exclude, or confirm hypotheses about an issue. One important limitation lies in the point of view: constrained by the economic power of the user, only a few endpoints, or just one, may be available to start the measurement from. Having the opportunity to choose arbitrarily on the Internet such locations would be a significant improvement. Furthermore, the use of special purpose packets like ping, may not really highlight network performance and characteristics. Often, operators are reluctant to allow ICMP and other debugging protocols: at first glance, there is no economic advantage in letting others check their status. In this work, we propose and discuss an infrastructure to tackle such problems. Initially, we present an efficient system to authenticate latency measurements such as ping, possibly behind a payment. Then, we provide a design for Debuglets, consisting of a framework to write and execute small network-oriented programs in a sandbox, evaluating their overhead in real-world measurements. We also describe and evaluate how the blockchain can be exploited to facilitate and entice the deployment of such a system, addressing both distribution and payment needs of the Debuglets.