Robert P Ricci

Research

Most of my research has been done in the context of Emulab, a testbed for distributed systems and network research. I'm one of the principal architects and implementers of Emulab - I've been working on it since 2000. The main Emulab site is at the University of Utah, but there are now a dozen sites around the world running testbeds with the Emulab software.

The work that I've done on Emulab spans a wide range of topics, including systems, networking, combinatorial optimization, security, and embedded systems. I've also done some work in microprocessor architecture.

As an undergraduate, I did a Bachelor's Thesis entitled Agile Protocols, an Application of Active Networking to Censor- Resistant Publishing Networks. The idea was to apply active networking techniques (ie. mobile code for network protocols) to make it difficult for ISPs, governments, and other powers to detect and filter peer-to-peer publishing networks such as Freenet.

Education

• Currently working on a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Utah. Started August 2004. This semester, I'm participating in:
  • Computer Systems Seminar
  • Machine Learning
• Honors BS in Computer Science, University of Utah, August 2001.
• Graduated from Olympus High School, Holladay, Utah, 1997

Publications

I've got a BibTeX file of my publications for easy citing.

• (new!)Large-scale Virtualization in the Emulab Network Testbed. Mike Hibler, Robert Ricci, Leigh Stoller, Jonathon Duerig, Shashi Guruprasad, Tim Stack, Kirk Webb and Jay Lepreau. At USENIX 08, Boston, Massassachusetts, June 2008.
• The Flexlab Approach to Realistic Evaluation of Networked Systems. Robert Ricci, Jonathon Duerig, Pramod Sanaga, Daniel Gebhardt, Mike Hibler, Kevin Atkinson, Junxing Zhang, Sneha Kasera, and Jay Lepreau NSDI 2007, Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 2007.
• A Realistic, Controlled, and Friendly Environment for Evaluating Networked Systems. Jonathon Duerig, Robert Ricci, Junxing Zhang, Daniel Gebhardt, Sneha Kasera and Jay Lepreau. Appeared in HotNets V, Irvine, California, November 2006.
• Leveraging Bloom Filters for Smart Search Within NUCA Caches. Robert Ricci, Steve Barrus, Dan Gebhardt, and Rajeev Balasubramonian. In WCED (Workshop on Complexity-Effective Design), held in conjunction with ICSA-33 (International Symposium on Computer Architecture), Boston, Massachusetts, June 2006.
• Lessons From Resource Allocators for Large-Scale Multiuser Testbeds. Robert Ricci, David Oppenheimer, Jay Lepreau, Amin Vahdat. In ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, January 2006.
• Mobile Emulab: A Robotic Wireless and Sensor Network Testbed. David Johnson, Tim Stack, Russ Fish, Daniel Flickinger, Leigh Stoller, Robert Ricci, Jay Lepreau. In IEEE INFOCOM 2006, Barcelona, Spain, April 2006.
• Integrated Network Experimentation using Simulation and Emulation. Shashi Guruprasad, Robert Ricci, Jay Lepreau. In First International Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks and Communities (Tridentcom 2005) Trento, Italy, February 2005.
• Implementing the Emulab-PlanetLab Portal: Experiences and Lessons Learned. Kirk Webb, Mike Hibler, Robert Ricci, Austin Clements, Jay Lepreau. In Proc. of the First Workshop on Real, Large Distributed Systems (WORLDS 2004), San Francisco, CA, December 2004.
• Fast, Scalable Disk Imaging with Frisbee. Mike Hibler, Leigh Stoller, Jay Lepreau, Robert Ricci, Chad Barb. In Proc. of the 2003 USENIX Annual Technical Conference, June 2003.
• A Solver for the Network Testbed Mapping Problem. Robert Ricci, Chris Alfeld, Jay Lepreau. ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communications Review, 33(2)65-81, April 2003.
• An Integrated Experimental Environment for Distributed Systems and Networks. White, Lepreau, Stoller, Ricci, Guruprasad, Newbold, Hibler, Barb, Joglekar. In Proc. of the Fifth Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI 2002), December 2002.
• Active Protocols for Agile Censor-Resistant Networks. Robert Ricci and Jay Lepreau. Presented at and appears in Proc. of the Eighth IEEE Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems, May 2001.

Talks

• (new!) Paper talk on Emulab virtual nodes at USENIX, June 2008. [slides: color pdf / 6up pdf ]
• (new!) Paper talk on Flexlab at NSDI, April 2007. [slides: color pdf / pdf for printing / pdf for printing, 6up]
• Guest lecture in Sneha Kasera's Network Security class, March 26, 2007. [resources]
• Interviewed for the BSDtalk podcast #103, March 12, 2007. [mp3]
• Emulab Federation Plans. Invited talk at the DETER federation workshop, December 11, 2006 at ISI in Marina del Rey, California. [slides: ppt]
• Leveraging Bloom Filters for Smart Search Within NUCA Caches. Paper talk at WCED, June 18, 2006, in Boston, Massachusetts. [slides: html/png]
• Running PlanetLab in Emulab. PlanetLab meeting on May 11, 2006, in Palo Alto, California. [slides: html/png / plp (plp requires pointless and my patches to it, below) ]
• Brief introduction to dnsiff. Given to CS6966, Network Security, Spring 2006. [slides: html/png ]
• Brief introduction to Emulab, focusing on security features. Given to CS6966, Network Security, May 2006. [slides: html/png / plp (plp requires pointless and my patches to it, below) ]
• Invited talk on assign at INFORMS, November 2005. [slides: html/png / plp (plp requires pointless and my patches to it, below) ]
• I talked about assign as part of a colloquium on Emulab at Boston University, May 2004. [slides: ppt]
• Paper talk on Frisbee at USENIX, June 2003. [slides: ppt / pdf ]
• Full-day hands-on tutorial at SIGCOMM, August 2002 [slides: ppt/pdf]

Software

Some miscellaneous software I've written, and got around to actually releasing...

• (new!) Powerless is slide creation software - it's a set of Ruby modules for creating good-looking slides with minimal effort. Some of its features include:
  • Works in FreeBSD and Linux - OS X should be straightfoward, but I've had trouble with some of the requisite packages crashing
  • Export to PDF - use the fullscreen mode of your favorite PDF viewer to do the slideshow
  • Multi-level bulleted lists
  • SVG figures, including selective rendering for incremental reveal (ie. reveal your figure portion-by-portion)
  • PNG figures
  • Split layouts - ie. a figure on the top, a bullet list on the bottom
  • Everything is dynamically sized to fit in available space
  • Automatic slide numbering
  • Changing font text and color
  • Centered text
  • Partial support for generating printable PDFs
• External sort for IEEE floating point numbers. Written for CS6962 (Advanced Algorithms), November 2005. C source, HTML-ized source.
• I've made some patches for pointless, a presentation tool in the true UNIX spirit. If you want to be able to:
  • Edit your slides with vi or emacs
  • Make your figures with inkscape or xfig
  • Make graphs with gnuplot
  • Use LaTeX in your slides for formulas, etc.
  • Have all of this rendered beautifully at any resolution (Powerpoint and its clones have terrible EPS support, and don't support SVG at all.)
  • Store your slides, figures, etc. in subversion, CVS, or RCS
  • Hack up the presentation software if it doesn't do what you want it to
  ... then you really should check out pointless! To see an example presentation, talk a look my assign/INFORMS slides above. My patches add support for SVG, color EPS graphics, scaled images (new!), and cpp-processed files. See the README file in the patch tarball for instructions on how to apply them to pointless 0.5 .

Other Interests

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  Who I've been listening to in the past week, courtesy of last.fm

  Music - I believe that when you buy music online, it should be in a standard, DRM-free format such as mp3, Ogg Vorbis or flac. When you buy music, the assumption should not be that you're a criminal who needs to be thwarted with DRM. You should be able to do with it what you want, without being locked into someone's proprietary player. The artist should be fairly compensated for their music.

  • This quote sums up my feelings about the ways that the RIAA and MPAA are trying to hold back the spread of digital music:

    There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation had made a profit out of the public for many years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor by common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.

    - Robert A. Heinlein, Life-line

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    Preservation Hall, New Orleans, Louisiana

    Magnatune is the record label that isn't evil. You know how we've all been saying that the record industry is a dinosaur, and needs to adapt with the technology? Well, here's a label that's done it right from the start. They let you listen to any music they sell as much as you want, for free. Then, when you inevitably decide to buy some, you decide how much it's worth to you (they suggest $8 per album), and the artist gets half of that. Compare that to the pennies they usually get per album from the major labels. You can download your music in several forms, including mp3, ogg, and flac (lossless!). And, you explicitly have permission to copy it for three friends! They've got hundreds of artists across a pretty wide range of genres. This is the music business done right. [samples: Zen Flute has gotta be the most relaxing thing in the world to listen to / Drop Trio plays nice, funky jazz]
  • They Might Be Giants will sell you mp3 and flac files of many of their albums. Sadly, they don't have all of their albums for download, but they have some cool stuff like live shows and songs they've written about the venues they've performed at. [samples: The Spine, their latest album is my favorite since Flood / the Venue Songs are incredibly entertaining]
  • The Live Music Archive at archive.org has something like 30,000 shows, most in lossless formats, for download. All of it's completely free. There are both indie and well-known artists in the list. The recordings are done by fans (and only uploaded with the artist's permission), so the quality varies. Some of it, though, borders on professional quality. But, since the downloads tend to be half a gig, I'd definitely recommend reading the reviews first! [samples: The Glen Phillips shows from August 30, 2005 and November 15, 2003 are amazing, and flawlessly recorded]
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  Cemetery angel, Metairie, Louisiana

  Digital Photography - All photographs on this page are mine. I'm currently shooting with an Olympus E-500, having recently upgraded from an Olympus C-5050Z I quite like Olympus cameras; I started on my dad's old OM2, then on his IS-3000, then on his C-720UZ.

  I've put many of my photos online in two places. (I hope to unify the two someday...) Newer photographs are at gallery.xrob.org, and older ones are at photos.xrob.org.

  Here are some local Salt Lake resources for amateur photographers:

  • Borge Andersen PhotoDigital is a good place to go if you need prints in an usual size. I've done a few panoramic prints there. They're not cheap, though.
  • Framing Establishment (5664 South 900 East, Murray, UT, 265-3500) is where I get all of my frames. They have a good selection of stock frames, and they do custom framing too. All of the staff there have always been very helpful to me.
  • Pictureline is a local camera store focusing on high-end gear.
• Good beer - believe it or not, you actually can get beer in Utah, and some of it is quite good.
  • The Beer Nut sells homebrewing equipment and supplies. My roommates and I made about a dozen batches over a few years. [favorites: the raspberry wheat kit was everyone's favorite, except for perhaps the imperial stout]
  • The Bayou (645 South State Street, Salt Lake City, UT) has over 200 beers on tap and in bottles. They have good Cajun-style food, and live jazz some nights. [favorites: well, I haven't had the same beer twice here. any of the deserts that have rum sauce are delicious]
  • Wasatch Beers is my favorite local brewery. [favorites: I'm quite partial to polygamy porter and the unofficial 2002 ale]
  • Uinta Brewing is another local microbrew. [favorites: cutthroat ale]
  • Eddie McStiff's is a pub down in Moab, Utah, the heart of Utah's red rock country. Some of their beers can be found occasionally in some Salt Lake grocery stores. [favorites: they're all good, though I would specifically recommend the raspberry and blueberry wheat]
  • Squatters is a brewpub in downtown Salt Lake City. They have several beers of their own, and carry the local brews. [favorites: captain bastard's oatmeal stout and provo girl pilsner. last time I was there, they had an espresso stout that was just awesome, but I believe it was a limited-run brew]
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  Salt Lake City Main Library, Utah

  Books - I've always loved to read. It can be almost as fun to go to a library or bookstore to pick out a book as it is to read it! Here are some of my favorite places to get books:
  • Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore is a great new and used bookstore in downtown Salt Lake. The first floor is large. The second floor is packed. The basement is a maze in which you could easily get lost for days. If you don't want to deal with parking, take TRAX - it's right next to the 3rd South stop. They're also working on getting the more than one million books in the store into their online catalog.
  • The Salt Lake City Main Library is mind-blowingly beautiful. Their collection is not that great, but it's an excellent place to hang out and explore. Really, it's one of the coolest things about Salt Lake. They have free wireless Internet thanks to Xmission, so it's a great place to take a laptop. Also easily accessible via TRAX, at the Library station on the University line.
  • The Marriott Library at the University of Utah is truly vast - it's one of the biggest university libraries in North America. And they're currently undergoing construction, partly to increase their capacity by another two million volumes. I'm quite impressed with their Computer Science collection.
  • King's English is another staple independent Utah bookstore.
  • Books of Yesterday is a great used book store in Logan, Utah, a small city about an hour and a half north of Salt Lake. They have a great collection of rare books. They claim to have over 400,000 books. It's actually worth a few hours of driving just to visit it.
  • Every time I go to San Francisco, I have to go to City Lights, a cool bookstore in the North Beach section of the city. It's a great place to look for books on current events and politics if you're a liberal sort of person.
  • Shakespeare and Company is an independent bookstore with several shops in New York City. My wife and I went into one, and didn't leave until we absolutely had to.
  • I've never actually been to Powell's, since I've never been to Portland, Oregon, but it's become my store of choice whenever I feel the need to order something over Ye Olde Web.
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  Sunset reflected in the Clark Fork River,
  Missoula, Montana

  Cooking - I like to do some cooking in my spare time. My favorites are Italian foods and stir-fry. Here are some of my favorite family recipes.

  Auntie Gloria's Pizzelles

  Italian waffle cookies. A Ricci Christmas tradition - my parents make literally hundreds of these every year to give to friends and family.

  3 eggs
  3/4 cup sugar
  3/4 cup melted butter
  2 cups flour
  1 tsp baking powder
  2 tsp anise extract
  1 tsp anise seed
  1 tsp orange rind
  2 tbsp milk
  Yields approximately 20 pizzelles

  Combine all ingredients in mixer, putting in the flour last. Let the melted butter cool for a few minutes before adding it, or it will cook the eggs. (If using a standard KitchenAid mixer, you can double the recipe if desired.)

  Place globs of dough, slightly larger than a tablespoon, on the two halves of a pizzelle iron. Close iron and clip shut. After about 30 seconds, remove pizzelles by lifting them with a fork. Set aside to cool. Once cooled, trim excess from the edges with a paring knife.

  Alternate flavors: Lemon - substitute lemon extract for anise extract and lemon peel for anise seed. Orange Rum - substitute rum or rum flavoring for anise extract, and orange peel for anise seeds. Almond - substitute amaretto for anise extract, and finely chopped almonds for anise seed.

Misc. stuff

• I've converted the University of Utah logo to SVG format for use in presentations, papers, etc. You can easily make clean-looking bitmap files in any resolution with it. There's a version with white text, and one with black text. The official source for University of Utah logos is University Marketing and Communications.
• I've also converted the Local First logo to svg for easy creation of web buttons.