uTNT: Unikernels for Efficient and Flexible Internet Probing

TL;DR

uTNT leverages unikernels to enhance the flexibility and efficiency of Internet probing, specifically for traceroute extensions like TNT, enabling more reactive and adaptable network measurements.

Contribution

This paper introduces uTNT, a unikernel-based implementation of TNT, demonstrating improved performance and flexibility for Internet probing compared to traditional methods.

Findings

uTNT outperforms traditional approaches in measurement efficiency

Unikernels provide increased flexibility for network measurement tools

uTNT successfully reveals MPLS tunnels in tests

Abstract

The last twenty years have seen the development and popularity of network measurement infrastructures. Internet measurement platforms have become common and have demonstrated their relevance in Internet understanding and security observation. However, despite their popularity, those platforms lack of flexibility and reactivity, as they are usually used for longitudinal measurements. As a consequence, they may miss detecting events that are security or Internet-related. During the same period, operating systems have evolved to virtual machines (VMs) as self-contained units for running applications, with the recent rise of unikernels, ultra-lightweight VMs tailored for specific applications, eliminating the need for a host OS. In this paper, we advocate that measurement infrastructures could take advantage of unikernels to become more flexible and efficient. We propose uTNT, a proof-of-concept unikernel-based implementation of TNT, a traceroute extension able to reveal MPLS tunnels. This paper documents the full toolchain for porting TNT into a unikernel and evaluates uTNT performance with respect to more traditional approaches. The paper also discusses a use case in which uTNT could find a suitable usage. uTNT source code is publicly available on Gitlab.