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Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

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Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#11

Post by michaelbuckbee »

cookiecaper wrote: post #7

Maybe this will cause Skype to take Linux and Mac more seriously. If you've used the Windows version, you know almost all development has occurred there, whereas the Mac and Linux clients have looked the same for the last four or five years. The Linux client did have a major version bump about a year ago iirc, and that brought some needed features, but it was mostly the same. Also, hopefully this will teach Skype to…

Agreed, I've always thought that Skype would one day roll out an enterprise type "Skype Server" that would explicitly make performance better within corporations.

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#12

Post by ra »

jallmann wrote: post #6

Nice to see the CEO of a large company that knows how to walk the talk. I've also seen him post on HN. Does Steve Ballmer know the difference between a micro and monolithic kernel?

I was thinking the same thing. What other big company CEO's would even think of investigating why their Skype was more jittery in some hotels, let alone actually know how to do it.

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#13

Post by _stephan »

I had the same issue: Shortly before Skype went completely offline, my Windows Skype client suddenly started crashing every few minutes. The Mac client didn't have that problem.

Some bug in the new version is probably the likeliest explanation, but if someone deliberately attacked the Skype network, it would probably look similar, right?

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#15

Post by jrockway »

guelo wrote: post #5
Groxx wrote: post #2

A wonderful reason to have pre-release testers for every piece of software that communicates with other software, any time you plan to push updates. With pulls, your early updaters are your test beds; with push, you have to create your testing groups.

The problem with a big adaptive p2p network is that it is close to impossible to test under real production loads.

My guess is that the average supernode is on something like 6M/1.5M DSL. This is easy to simulate.

Now, if most of your nodes are on machines directly connected to 10GbE, then that's a problem. But most Skype nodes aren't. (I do imagine there are a few connected to 100M+ connections. But only a few.)

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#17

Post by bl4k »

ra wrote: post #12
jallmann wrote: post #6

Nice to see the CEO of a large company that knows how to walk the talk. I've also seen him post on HN. Does Steve Ballmer know the difference between a micro and monolithic kernel?

I was thinking the same thing. What other big company CEO's would even think of investigating why their Skype was more jittery in some hotels, let alone actually know how to do it.

probably busy running big companies

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#18

Post by hackermom »

I, too, run a Skype supernode - completely unvoluntarily, barring the possibility of something hidden behind an asterisk in the EULA. Does anyone know if there is a way to "opt out" of this? Everytime I start skype up it makes a million connections to everywhere and without even having a call on the line my measly 2.5 mbps upstream is permanently choked.

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#19

Post by yellowbkpk »

ars wrote: post #9
billpg wrote: post #8

Are Skype relying on third parties with no contractual relationship for an essential component of the network?

Yup. But they do mention it when installing. You can also disable it. If you are not firewalled or NATd you are a supernode automatically - on the plus side you get better sound quality for voice calls. Normally the bandwidth used is pretty low since you are mostly forwarding text messages. When they said mega-supernodes they meant machines controlled by them that do nothing else, and are on high bandwidth connection…

I've looked around for the ability to turn off supernode on Linux and Mac clients for a while but have come up empty. Do you know which section of the preferences/settings it's supposed to be in?

Re: Skype Outage – I run a supernode and here’s what I think happened

#20

Post by dflock »

cookiecaper wrote: post #7

Maybe this will cause Skype to take Linux and Mac more seriously. If you've used the Windows version, you know almost all development has occurred there, whereas the Mac and Linux clients have looked the same for the last four or five years. The Linux client did have a major version bump about a year ago iirc, and that brought some needed features, but it was mostly the same. Also, hopefully this will teach Skype to…

They've already said that they're going to open source the client (http://blogs.skype.com/linux/2009/11/skype_open_source.html)... they just haven't actually done anything about it yet.

They'd better get a move on though, otherwise someone else (http://www.enrupt.com/index.php) is going to do it for them: http://www.enrupt.com/index.php/2010/07/07/skype-biggest-sec...

The trouble is that Skype is so closed and has been seemingly uninterested in open source and Linux, it's hard to find open source dev's who are interested in developing Skype related stuff.

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