RIPE Atlas Documentation

Probe Selection ​

The probes array specifies which probes should perform the measurement. Each object in the array contains:

  • requested: Number of probes wanted
  • type: Selection method (see below)
  • value: The lookup value for the given type

Selection Types ​

region ​

Select probes from a geographic region — continents, sub-regions, political/economic groupings, or RIR service regions. Takes a single region value.

json
{"requested": 20, "type": "region", "value": "western_europe"}

Available regions:

Africa: africa, northern_africa, sub_saharan_africa, eastern_africa, middle_africa, southern_africa, western_africa

Americas: americas, latin_america_and_caribbean, caribbean, central_america, south_america, northern_america

Antarctica: antarctica

Asia: asia, central_asia, eastern_asia, south_eastern_asia, southern_asia, western_asia

Europe: europe, eastern_europe, northern_europe, southern_europe, western_europe

Oceania: oceania, australia_and_new_zealand, melanesia, micronesia, polynesia

Political/Economic: eu27

RIR Service Regions: afrinic, apnic, arin, lacnic, ripencc

countries ​

Select probes from one or more countries using ISO two-letter country codes. The value is a comma-separated list:

json
{"requested": 10, "type": "countries", "value": "NL,DE,FR"}

prefix ​

Select by IP prefix:

json
{"requested": 5, "type": "prefix", "value": "193.3.6.0/8"}

asn ​

Select by Autonomous System Number:

json
{"requested": 5, "type": "asn", "value": 3333}

probes ​

Request specific probes by ID (comma-separated string):

json
{"requested": 3, "type": "probes", "value": "1,2,3"}

msm ​

Reuse probes from a previous measurement:

json
{"requested": 1, "type": "msm", "value": 1000002}

Probe Tags ​

Any selection type can be further filtered using probe tags:

json
{
    "requested": 10,
    "type": "region",
    "value": "europe",
    "tags_include": ["system-ipv4-works"],
    "tags_exclude": ["system-ipv6-works"]
}

Use tags_include and tags_exclude with comma-separated lists of probe tags.

Combining Requests ​

The probes array can contain multiple objects of different types:

json
"probes": [
    {"requested": 5, "type": "asn", "value": 3333},
    {"requested": 10, "type": "region", "value": "europe"}
]

Validation ​

When the array has multiple items, the API validates each one independently:

  • Valid items proceed normally
  • Invalid items generate warning objects in the response
  • If ALL items are invalid, an error is returned instead

Validation may fail because:

  • The type or value is invalid
  • No probes match the criteria (e.g. an ASN with no Atlas probes)

Participation Requests ​

After creation, each probes object becomes a participation request with its own ID. See Participation Requests for details.