BirdNest Tech Talk

Jun 8, 2026 · Operations

Lidar: Baidu’s Open‑Source Network Monitoring Tool That Goes Beyond PingMesh

The article introduces Lidar, Baidu’s new open‑source TCP‑SYN based network monitoring system, explains why the classic PingMesh approach is unsuitable for large data‑center environments, and details Lidar’s design, implementation quirks across Linux and macOS, BPF filtering, source‑port rotation for ECMP coverage, and practical usage examples.