Tools 6. Where are my packets lost? MTR edition.

Hello my friend,

after show pause we continue our blog series about the most popular network troubleshooting tools, which humankind has ever created. Today we’ll take a look at one of the most useful tool to obtain the information about the path between two endpoints and possible packet drops over that path. Ladies and gentlemen, please, welcome MTR.

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Can automation help with figuring what happened where?

In case of the infrastructure problems (networks, servers, VMs, containers), the time matters a lot. The quicker we can find the issue and fix that, the better it will be for our applications and our customers. Automation without doubts one of the key components, which allows you to quickly find and fix your issues.

In our trainings, the Live Network Automation Training (10 weeks) and Automation with Nornir (2 weeks), we explore a lot of real use cases, where the automation helps you to validate the state of you Continue reading

pygnmi 9. The safest way to store credentials for network devices.

Hello my friend,

Recently we were asked, what is the safest way to store the credentials for network devices to your automation tools (e.g., the one based on Python and gNMI). Building the network automation solutions for a while, we have a good answer to you.

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What is the most promising network automation protocol ?

gNMI was created by Google to manage their data centres and backbone network and is widely used by other biggest companies worldwide. However, it doesn’t mean that only the big guys can benefit from that. Every company and network can get the advantage of a single protocol for the configuration, operation, and streaming telemetry in their network provided your network devices support that.

At our trainings, advanced network automation and automation with Nornir (2nd step after advanced network automation), we give you detailed knowledge of all the technologies relevant:

• Data encoding (free-text, XML, JSON, YAML, Protobuf)
• Model-driven network automation Continue reading

pygnmi 8. Securing the gNMI connectivity with self-signed certificates.

Hello my friend,

Continuing our explanation of the pyGNMI, we’ll take a loon into the security aspect of the tool. Namely, we will take a look how quickly and easily you can implement the encryption between your host running pyGNMI and the gNMI speaking network function.

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Where is the GNMI in the Network Automation?

The automation world (network and not only) can at a high level be split into text-based automation and model-driven automation. The text based automation is all about Linux systems, where we typically template the whole configuration files, put them in the corresponding folders and then restart daemons. The model driven approach is where we communicate with the network devices using the NETCONF, RESTCONF or gNMI based on the YANG modules. At the current moment, gNMI is most dynamically developing protocol. We not only teaches you how it works and when to use it, but we also created a Python library, Continue reading

SEC 4. Complete guide for integrating Nokia, Arista, Cumulus, as well as CentOS and Raspberry PI Linux in your own PKI

Hello my friend,

In one of the previous blogposts we have share the details how you can build the containerised PKI relying Docker, Alpine Linux and OpenSSL. Today we’ll show how you can use it.

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How automation can increase the security?

In one of the recent articles dedicated to threats to the national security with respect to 5G caused by the current operation models in the big service providers, one the network automation were named as one of the key mitigation approaches. The reason is very simple: network automation allows you to keep (or even increase) the pace of the network changes with increasing the stability without increasing the size of your network operation teams.

We absolutely agree with this statement. We have observed ourselves that in many cases the key technical competence for service providers is being outsourced and in certain cases the service providers have to rely on the external parties to perform Continue reading

Tools 5. Searching for live hosts with fping. IPv4 and IPv6 version.

Hello my friend,

Quite often, when we do the troubleshooting of our networks and systems, we want to figure out, which hosts are alive in the certain range. The quickest and the easiest way (though, not 100% accurate) is to run the ping against a specific range of IPs. There is a brilliant tool for this purpose, which is called fping.

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Can automation help to find issues in the network quickly?

All the time, when the outage is happening in the production environment, either with the network or server/application infrastructure, the race starts to restore the service as soon as possible. Automation is a key helper there.

In our trainings, the Live Network Automation Training (10 weeks) and Automation with Nornir (2 weeks), we explore a lot of real use cases, where the automation helps you to validate the state of you network and change it if necessary. You will learn the whole spectre of Continue reading

SEC 3. Building your own containerised PKI (root CA) with Linux and Docker to simplify and secure network automation

Hello my friend,

You know our passion to network automation. We truly believe, that this is the only sustainable way for the network development and operation. In the same time, one the key goals of the automation is to make your network secure and safe. Therefore, the security of the automation and communication channels used by automation is very important. So today we’ll take a look how to build

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Can automation make your network better?

Automation is the key component of the perpetual engine of your network development and operation. It allows you to run the network quick, stable, and safe. And we are willing you to benefit as much as you can from that.

We have created a new training, which is focused only on the Nornir and you can use it for the network (and not only) automation. It is an organic extension of our network automation training, which assumes you are already Continue reading

Tools 4. Checking bandwidth between your servers, VMs, containers or even PIs and Android/Apple phone using iperf

Hello my friend,

We hope you are doing well and staying safe during this COVID times. To make your stay a bit more pleasant, we are offering you and interesting read, which will give you ideas how to test network performance between your endpoints, which can be any Server, virtual machine (VM), container, or even Raspberry PI node. Yes, we continue our troubleshooting series. Take a brew, and get started.

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Can automation help with fixing your network issues?

Automation is your extra pair of hands. Or even more than that. Capability to create the network automation solutions, from a basic scripts for info collection or simple configuration to complicated logic, which takes into account exiting environment and is integrated with your other OSS/BSS, is one of the key skills, what allows you to build a successful career in the constantly changing network field.

We have created a new training, which is focused only on the Nornir Continue reading

pygnmi 7. Integration of pygnmi with Nornir

Hello my friend,

With this blogpost we continue the series of pygnmi tutorials covering various use cases of our Python library created to help you with managing your network devices via GNMI. And today we show you, how easily you can use it with Nornir, if you like this automation framework.

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Can it be enough automation?

Yes, it can be. But how to understand, what you should automate and what shouldn’t? What are the success strategies to start the automation projects and what are the receipts of disaster? What is the most efficient ways and technologies depending on context, and how to identify? Should you still stick to CLI? Is the model-driven automation all the time suitable? There are gazillions of questions about the network automation, which you may have in your mind, but don’t know whom to ask. We are here to help you.

At our trainings, advanced network automation and automation with Nornir (2nd Continue reading

Tools 3. Checking your connectivity bandwidth with Speedtest

Hello my friend,

Continuing our discussion about the network troubleshooting tools we can’t pass by one of the most popular and widely used, which is named SpeedTest.

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Can automation help with performance troubleshooting?

Doing the collection and initial analysis of the information during the troubleshooting could be quite a time-consuming task. On the other hand, the troubleshooting of the live outages should be as quick as possible to minimise the downtime of the affected services. That’s where the automation can help you.

In our network automation training we explain how to use existing open-source tools and create your own with Ansible, Bash and Python. Leveraging them and all possible interfaces (CLI, NETCONF, RESTCONF, gNMI) we teach you how to effectively build, operate and troubleshoot your network.

Start your automation training today.

Brief description

From the name of the tool, SpeedTest, it is obvious that the main goal is to measure the “speed”. In fact, it measures Continue reading

DC. Part 17. High-available server cluster connected to DC fabric.

Hello my friend,

In the vast majority of cases we speak about the network, network devices and network configuration. Which is absolutely legitimate, as we write about the networks. However, sometimes exactly the same network technologies live in the server world and do the same things under different names. So today we’ll take a look how to create the high-available server cluster using the Keepalived.

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Servers are perfect for automation

The network exists to span the applications and customers. However, it doesn’t host applications itself; instead, they are hosted on the servers. That’s why automation of the servers is very big topic and, in all honesty, the automation originally has started in the server world.

In the same time, the tools and approaches you learn at our network automation training are universal: they are applicable both for the network and servers automation. Automate all things!

At our network automation training we explore the Linux setup and Continue reading

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2021

Dear friend,

This year was unbelievable. But despite all the horrible things related to COVID19 and lockdown, you and we are still alive. Moreover, the networking and automation industry is growing. It means, we are together on the right side, but we need continuously sharp existing and develop new skills.

We sincerely thank you for your interest in our projects, blogs and trainings. For your questions, comments and suggestions. It means for us a lot.

We wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Stay healthy and safe during the holiday times and the whole new year.

All the best,
Team Karneliuk.com

pygnmi 3. Usage of gNMI Capabilities.

Hello my friend,

Some time ago we’ve started sharing with you the details of pygnmi – our new open-source Python library created to simplify the management of the network elements with gNMI. The library is already almost fully operational and we want to start sharing the usage scenarios with you.

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Don’t you want to automate boring stuff?

Every job, especially network operation, has lots of routing tasks, which are boing and time consuming. Some of such tasks could be already automated in your company, but the vast majority is still waiting you. In our trainings:

• We explain the advantages and challenges of network automation in multivendor networks (leveraging network operating systems from Cisco, Nokia, Arista, Cumulus).
• We teach you how to reach quick wins in network automation to fuel your automation projects for a long run.
• We covers all the details of the automation protocols, data models and teach you how to apply it in real Continue reading

Tools 2. How to learn your public IP? Programatically?

Hello my friend,

Just recently we have started discussion about the tools about the performance troubleshooting in networks. One of the questions we were asked afterwards was, how to programatically get your public IP? Well, that is interesting one.

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Can automation help with performance troubleshooting?

Yes, and that was a question we’ve started this blogpost with is about that. How can we rely the automation tools by troubleshooting? How can we get our IP to make any diagnostics? You will see some things right in this blogpost

Our network automation training has two faces: either live or self-paced. So you can choose yourself, what works better for you. On our side, we guide you from the foundation of the automation for the small networks till advanced automation use cases in big data centres, service providers, and clouds. You will lean how to structure the data using YANG modules, how to serialise it using JSON, XML, Protocol Continue reading

Tools 1. Top 5 tools for network performance troubleshooting

Hello my friend,

some time ago we’ve been recently engaged in the troubleshooting of the performance issues. Namely, the speed of the communication between the application’s endpoints in two data centres was not persistent. Instead, it was deviating a lot having multiple TCP retransmissions for certain flows. The issues was successfully solved, and we’d like to share with you the tools we have used to identify and validate various aspects of traffic forwarding.

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Can automation help with performance troubleshooting?

Absolutely. During our network automation training we show how to utilise various Linux tools from configuration management tools (e.g. Ansible) and programming languages (Bash, Python). That gives you ready examples from our training, which you can use in your network immediately, and endless possibilities to create your own automated troubleshooting workflows.

Our network automation training has two faces: either live or self-paced. So you can choose yourself, what works better for you. On our side, we Continue reading

Installing FTP client (or any other Linux tool) on Cumulus Linux

Hello my friend,

Recently I’ve been engage in some troubleshooting with Cumulus and was looking for the way, how can I send the cl-support file from my switches directly to the vendor support bypassing downloading them to my laptop.

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Eager to learn about network automation?

We are here to help you. At our network automation training you learn all you need to know to be successful with such tasks in your profession:

• Foundation, operation and administration of Linux, Docker, KVM
• Structure, syntax, and content of YANG models
• Structure, syntax, and application of various data encoding formats: JSON, XML, Protocol Buffers (Protobuf)
• Operation and application of different transport protocols SSH, HTTP, gRPC
• Operation and application of management specifications: CLI, gNMI, NETCONF, RESTCONF/REST API
• How to use and manage everything above with Ansible, Bash, and Python

Start your automation training today.

Brief description

Let’s take a closer look into the issue. The Cumulus Linux is based on the Continue reading

Ansible 2.10 introduction

Hello my friend,

as you know, Ansible is one of the leading tools for the automation of the IT and network infrastructure. We have written a lot about it earlier (e.g. CLI configs, OpenConfig with NETCONF, or VNF-M). Recently Red Hat announced the new version of Ansible (Ansible 2.10), which changes a lot the way we used to work with that.

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retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any 

means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, 

or otherwise, for commercial purposes without the 

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Eager to learn about network automation?

We are here to help you. At our network automation training you learn all you need to know to be successful with such tasks in your profession:

• Linux, Docker, KVM
• YANG models
• JSON, XML, Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) data formats
• SSH, REST API, gRPC transport
• gNMI, NETCONF, RESTCONF protocols
• How to use and manage everything above with Ansible, Bash, and Python

Start your automation training today.

What that is about

Ansible 2.10 is more than a just another Ansible’s update. It is a new approach, paradigm shift, Continue reading

pygnmi 2. How to use pyGNMI?

Hello my friend,

In the previous article we have mentioned that we have started building our own Python package, which will allow you to easily interact with the network functions over gNMI. Today we want to share with you some progress and explain, how you can start benefiting from it right now.

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Is automation really so important?

Amount of network-related tasks in each company is growing years, if company is doing well. The number of employees is not. That creates a need for business relying on technologies to “do more with less”. The automation is a key enabler for this approach. And we are keen to help your business (or yourself) to find a right approach to network automation and successfully implement it. In our trainings:

• We explain the advantages and challenges of network automation in multivendor networks.
• We teach you how to reach quick wins in network automation to fuel your automation projects for Continue reading

pygnmi 1. Intro to pure Python gNMI module by karneliuk.com.

Hello my friend,

It took a while since our latest post from the Code Express (CEX) series. During this time we were working heavy to launch an advanced version of our industry-leading network automation training. However, this time we were working on something special…

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Automate all the network things

Each and every element in the network can be automated. It is always the question, if it shall be. Both of these questions are subject to our training:

• We teach you how automate each and every network function in your network.
• We teach you how to identify, what makes sense to automate, what not, and how to make your network automation successful.

At our network automation training (either live or self-paced) you will guide you from the foundation of the automation for the small networks till advanced automation use cases in big data centres, and clouds. You will lean how to structure the data using YANG Continue reading

CEX (Code EXpress) 13. Creating your own Python modules.

Hello my friend,

Recently we have learned how to use the external modules to make your Python’s code more powerful. At some point, perhaps already now, you started creating user-defined functions so good that you would like to re-use them in other projects.

Automate all the things

Network automation is one of the most important things named by CIOs in Gather’s research. As such, the companies are (and will be) looking for the experts, who are able to develop new solutions and find creative ways to improve networks’ efficiency via automation. And we are keen to help you with that?

At our network automation training, either self-paced or instructor lead, you will learn the leading technologies, protocols, and tools used to manage the networks in the busiest networks worldwide, such as Google data centres. However, once you master all the skills, you will be able to automate the network of any scale. You will see the opportunities and you will exploit them.

Secret words: NETCONF, REST API, gRPC, JSON , XML, Protocol buffers, SSH, OpenConfig, Python, Ansible, Linux, Docker; and many other wonderful tools and techniques are waiting for you in our training!

Don’t miss opportunity to start your network Continue reading

HS. Part 7. Interoperability of Nokia SRLinux and Microsoft Azure SONiC

Hello my friend,

we continue the series of the blogpost dedicated to the overview of the Nokia SR Linux. Today we will speak about the interoperability and its joint operation with Microsoft Azure SONiC, another disaggregated OS, which is used in the hyper scale data centres.

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Automate your data centre infrastrcutre

The data centres and applications they host might be very static, if that is classical enterprise workloads. However, in the world of the clouds the frequency of the changes performed in the data centre network and servers can be very high. Effectively, it can be so high that doing them manually is impractical.

At our network automation training (either live or self-paced) you will learn the foundation of the automation for the small and big data centres, and clouds. You will lean how to structure the data using YANG modules, how to serialise it using JSON, XML, Protobuf depending on the application requirements Continue reading