> We should have a way to forward every single layer of the stack across each hop, and return back each layer of the stack, so that we can programmatically determine the exact causes of network issues, automatically diagnose them, and inform the user how to solve them. But right now, you need a human being to jump onto the user's computer and fire up an assortment of random tools in mystical combinations and use human intuition to divine what's going on, like a god damn Networking Gandalf. And we've been doing it this way for 40+ years.
I work in a company that builds network troubleshooting/observability tools and we have some pretty experienced analysts to tell you what's wrong with the network. With that context, your idea of having any tool automatically diagnosing network issues is a pipe dream.
The problem with networks is that they're very complex systems, with multiple elements along the way, made by different manufacturers, often with different owners, failures aren't always easily reproducible, and with human configuration (and therefore errors) almost every step of the way. Even if a tool that "returns each layer of the stack" would be useful, it still would be far from enough to diagnose issues.
"The problem with networks is that they're very complex systems, with multiple elements along the way, made by different manufacturers, often with different owners"
Ah, how people forget the early days of networking. I remember vividly the early days of the Networld/Interop trade show - Interop was in the name because if, as a vendor, your equipment couldn't integrate with the show network they would throw your booth off the show floor.
That's how bad interoperability in the early days was!
I work in a company that builds network troubleshooting/observability tools and we have some pretty experienced analysts to tell you what's wrong with the network. With that context, your idea of having any tool automatically diagnosing network issues is a pipe dream.
The problem with networks is that they're very complex systems, with multiple elements along the way, made by different manufacturers, often with different owners, failures aren't always easily reproducible, and with human configuration (and therefore errors) almost every step of the way. Even if a tool that "returns each layer of the stack" would be useful, it still would be far from enough to diagnose issues.