Summary

  • At RIPE 93, RIPE NCC described a bring-your-own-device concept: a host could flash an NCC-supplied image onto a spare Raspberry Pi and run it as an Atlas hardware probe. It is a plan, not a released installation path.
  • The registry's existing distribution rule directs scarce shipped probes toward end-user networks and places with thin coverage. Volunteer-supplied boards solve a shipping problem only if Atlas can still find the missing networks.

The carton has been a bottleneck for RIPE Atlas. RIPE NCC's own distribution account says requests for hardware probes exceed supply, sponsors determine how many devices it can order, and some destinations are hard to serve through customs or delivery. A spare board on a volunteer's desk offers an obvious escape. It does not tell Atlas whether the board sits in a network it needs to see.

At the RIPE 93 Measurements and Tools session on 27 October, Robert Kisteleki said the next step under discussion is “bring your own device”. A host with a spare Raspberry Pi would flash an image supplied by RIPE NCC, making it a hardware probe. He linked the idea to supply-chain constraints. His description was of a concept; the public Q4 Atlas plan still marks OpenWRT hardware-probe packaging as in progress.

This is a different bargain from the existing software probe. Atlas documentation already lets hosts install probe software on their own server, router or virtual machine and asks them to keep packages current. RIPE NCC's earlier distribution article even points to a do-it-yourself hardware demonstration. The new proposal is the NCC supplying a flashable image as a regular route to a host-owned hardware probe, rather than finding another stock of boxes to ship.

The hard part begins after a device connects. RIPE NCC says its limited shipped hardware goes first to end-user networks and underserved locations. Another probe in a dense cluster may add little; one in a previously unseen access network can change what an outage or routing test reveals. A volunteer-owned device removes the purchase-and-parcel gate, but volunteers choose where they can plug it in. Atlas still has to explain how it will recruit and retain useful vantage points, distinguish them from crowded ones and keep a working probe after its host changes equipment.

The current records give no released image, approved-device list or BYOD enrollment rule. The first published installation instructions and a count of connected probes by previously uncovered network would show whether the concept has become an operating service.

Sources: RIPE 93 MAT transcript; RIPE Atlas Q4 plan; RIPE NCC probe-distribution account; Atlas software-probe guide.