internet-equity / netrics-dash Goto Github PK

The /dashboard/trial/ endpoint(s) should collect information about the test agents which submit to them.

• test agent: page|ext (Web page or browser extension) (most important)
• user agent: (the browser's user agent)

These data may be of use in debugging and validating installations, as well as to understand whether and how participants install and use local network testing tools.

Beta testers' devices are now exporting data to:

/var/nm/nm-exp-active-netrics/upload/{pending,archive}/beta/json/

rather than to:

/var/nm/nm-exp-active-netrics/upload/{pending,archive}/default/json/

If this must be the case, and we want a one-size-fits-all solution, the local dashboard could be universally configured by a single environment variable, DATAFILE_PATH, from which is constructed the backend's DATA_PATHS, e.g.:

DATAFILE_PATH=/var/nm/nm-exp-active-netrics/upload/pending/beta/json/:/var/nm/nm-exp-active-netrics/upload/archive/beta/json/:/var/nm/nm-exp-active-netrics/upload/pending/default/json/:/var/nm/nm-exp-active-netrics/upload/archive/default/json/

(And the backend might have to ignore non-existent directory paths.)

…And/or, this configuration variable might be dependent upon the participant's phase of the study, etc.

In addition to the existing provisioning script, the Local Dashboard should provide an example Docker Compose implementation of its deployment, including the NDT7 server, the Local Dashboard web server, and the dashboard's data extraction (ETL) routine.

Instead of getting them from the CDN, so that the thing still works if the connection is down.

Low priority...

As a (beta/test) participant whose device has just been enrolled, I expect to see my internet testing statistics on my local dashboard as soon as collection begins. However, the local dashboard server endpoint /dashboard/stats fails with the error:

TypeError: Object of type deque is not JSON serializable                       

(1) Suggest language change for the presentation of the home network / LAN bandwidth test's historical results. Currently this reads like this:

Your Web browser(s) have conducted 20 download tests of your home network. In the bulk of these — 16 tests — your network bandwidth averaged 184.7 megabits per second. So, your home network bandwidth is usually greater than that of the connection from your ISP: that's good.

In this case, my current speed was just 30 Mbps, and this almost feels confusing. What does the 185.7 Mbps have to do with the crappy answer I just got? Do I ever actually get a bandwidth of 184.7 (to where?)? It is not clear that the 184.7 quoted above is the 80% winsorized mean, and I wouldn't present the number that way.

Instead / in addition, I would suggest something like:

Your Web browser(s) have conducted 20 download tests of your home network. For 17 of these (85%), the bandwidth of your local network has exceeded the bandwidth from your router to the Internet. For 3 of the tests (15%), your local network -- probably your Wi-Fi -- was the bottleneck of your Internet speed.

(2) plot/table/list of recent results

The JSON data file backend fails to catch errors thrown for invalid JSON files. As such, the Local Dashboard may fail to present to the participant their measurement data.