engine: split packet loss by direction using the server's observations

"3 % loss" sends an engineer looking in both directions at once. The server
records every packet it received per sequence number, so the two cases are
distinguishable: sent-but-never-seen is upstream loss, seen-but-no-reply is
downstream. The findings say which, and say what is not implicated.

Downstream loss is measured against what reached the server, not against what
was sent — the other denominator counts every upstream loss twice and
overstates the return path.

Per-direction jitter comes out of the same records without needing synchronised
clocks: (server_rx - client_tx) carries a constant unknown offset, and
differencing successive samples cancels it, so RFC 3393 variation is honestly
attributable to a direction even though absolute latency is not.

Correlation is by wire sequence number, not loop index — the counter is shared
with every packet type on the session. ProbeSession exposes it even for a lost
probe, since that is precisely the packet whose direction is in question.

Live against fmr: 0.08 ms upstream jitter vs 0.85 ms downstream, an asymmetry a
round-trip test cannot see.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
mrambossek
2026-08-01 13:09:59 +02:00
co-authored by Claude Fable 5
parent 3e7e3b8d33
commit 4ffa6e4ae2
6 changed files with 409 additions and 5 deletions
+34
View File
@@ -694,3 +694,37 @@ Two process notes from this round:
token. Caught by deploying and *looking at the response*, not by trusting a green build.
- The live suite is now six tests (`LiveServerTest`, `LiveMeasurement`, `LiveGranted`,
`LiveUpload`, `LiveCompat`, `LiveEnrollment`), all green against fmr from the PC with no device.
### Directional loss: which way is the packet loss? (2026-08-01)
A round trip can only report that *something* was lost somewhere, which is the least useful form
of the answer — "3 % loss" sends an engineer looking in both directions at once. The server
already records every packet it received per sequence number (§6), so the two cases are actually
distinguishable, and `train.udp_updown` now reports them separately:
- sent, never seen by the server → **upstream** loss
- seen by the server, reply never arrived → **downstream** loss
Findings name the direction and say what is *not* implicated, which is half the value:
`connectivity.loss_upstream` ("the return path is not implicated: replies came back for everything
that arrived"), `connectivity.loss_downstream`, `nat.udp_unreachable_upstream`.
Two things the implementation gets deliberately right:
- **Downstream loss is measured against what reached the server**, not against what was sent.
Using "sent" as the denominator counts every upstream loss a second time and overstates the
return path. Pinned by a test with loss in both directions at once.
- **Per-direction jitter without synchronised clocks.** Absolute one-way delay would need clock
sync and we deliberately have none (the two-clock rule). But `server_rx client_tx` carries a
constant unknown offset, and differencing successive samples cancels it — so RFC 3393 one-way
delay variation *is* honestly attributable to a direction even though latency is not. A test
pins that a 10-second clock offset changes nothing.
Correlation is by **wire sequence number**, which is not the loop index: the counter is shared
with every other packet type on the session, so "the nth echo" is not "sequence n". `ProbeSession`
now exposes `lastSeq`, including for a probe that was lost — a lost packet still has a sequence
number, and that number is exactly what tells you which way it was lost.
Live against fmr: 20/20 both ways, and jitter of **0.08 ms upstream vs 0.85 ms downstream** — a
tenfold asymmetry that a round-trip measurement cannot see at all.
10 unit tests on the arithmetic (a wrong denominator here does not crash, it produces a plausible
number pointing at the wrong half of the network) plus the live correlation check.