---
name: "sc_erosprober"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "scamper"
version: "20211212-1.2+b1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/sc_erosprober"
---

# sc\_erosprober(1)

scamper driver to periodically probe addresses and rotate output files.

## NAME

**sc\_erosprober** – scamper driver to periodically probe addresses and rotate output files.

## SYNOPSIS

**sc\_erosprober** \[**-a** *addrfile*\] \[**-c** *command*\] \[**-I** *interval*\] \[**-l** *logfile*\] \[**-o** *outfile*\] \[**-O** *option*\] \[**-p** *port*\] \[**-R** *rotation*\] \[**-U** *unix-scamper*\] \[**-x** *unix-control*\]

## DESCRIPTION

The **sc\_erosprober** utility provides the ability to connect to a running [scamper(1)](/scamper/1.md) instance and use it to periodically probe a set of addresses at a defined interval, and periodically rotate the output file at a defined interval. The supported options to **sc\_erosprober** are as follows:

- **-a** *addrfile*

  specifies the name of the input file which consists of a sequence of IP addresses to probe, one address per line.

- **-c** *command*

  specifies the command to use with each address. **sc\_erosprober** supports the trace and ping commands, and their options, in scamper. [scamper(1)](/scamper/1.md) documents the options available in trace and ping.

- **-I** *interval*

  specifies the probe interval, in seconds, between probing each address. **sc\_erosprober** will spread the probing of the addresses across the interval. If there are 10 addresses to probe at an interval of 20 seconds, then **sc\_erosprober** will issue a command every two seconds.

- **-l** *logfile*

  specifies the name of a file to log progress output from **sc\_erosprober** generated at run time.

- **-o** *outfile*

  specifies the prefix of the name of the output file to be written. The output file will use the warts(5) format. **sc\_erosprober** will create a sequence of files named using the prefix and a timestamp.

- **-O** *options*

  allows the behavior of **sc\_erosprober** to be further tailored. The current choices for this option are:

  - **noshuffle:** do not shuffle the order of addresses before probing starts.

  - **nooutfile:** do not write to warts files, just do the probing.

- **-p** *port*

  specifies the port on the local host where [scamper(1)](/scamper/1.md) is accepting control socket connections.

- **-R** *rotation*

  specifies the rotation interval, in seconds, between rotating output files.

- **-U** *unix-scamper*

  specifies the name of a unix domain socket where [scamper(1)](/scamper/1.md) is accepting control socket connections. This socket is used by **sc\_erosprober** to send probing commands to [scamper(1)](/scamper/1.md)

- **-x** *unix-control*

  specifies the name of a unix domain socket where **sc\_erosprober** is accepting control socket connections. This socket can be used by a local process to adjust the probing list at run time.

## EXAMPLES

Given a set of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses contained in a file named addrs and a scamper process listening at sock configured to probe at 100 packets per second started as follows:

```
scamper -U scamper-sock -p 100
```

the following command will ping the addresses every two minutes using one packet, and create an output file every thirty seconds prefixed with foo:

```
sc_erosprober -U scamper-sock -a addrs -o foo -I 120 -R 30 -c 'ping -c 1'
```

The following command will traceroute towards the addresses every 15 minutes, creating an output file every minute, with an **sc\_erosprober** control socket:

```
sc_erosprober -U scamper-sock -x erosprober-sock -a addrs -o foo -I 900 -R 60 -c 'trace'
```

To add an address to the probeset at runtime, using netcat, use:

```
nc -U erosprober-sock
```

```
+192.0.2.1
```

To remove an address from the probeset at runtime, using netcat, use:

```
nc -U erosprober-sock
```

```
-192.0.31.60
```

## SEE ALSO

[scamper(1)](/scamper/1.md), [sc\_wartsdump(1)](/sc_wartsdump/1.md), [sc\_warts2text(1)](/sc_warts2text/1.md), [sc\_warts2json(1)](/sc_warts2json/1.md), warts(5)

## AUTHORS

**sc\_erosprober** was written by Matthew Luckie.