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Category Archives for "Networking"

Internet Resilience Discussions at IETF 104

Let’s look at what’s happening in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the upcoming IETF 104 meeting in the area of Internet infrastructure resilience. As usual, my focus here is primarily on the routing and forwarding planes, and specifically routing security and unwanted traffic of Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS) attacks. There’s interesting and important work underway at the IETF that can help addressing problems in both areas.

This time there are a lot of new ideas, especially of an operational nature, that people bring to the IETF in the form of Internet Drafts that aim to improve the security and resilience of the Internet infrastructure. So I’d like to introduce some of them to you, but keep in mind that an Internet Draft (I-D) does not necessarily indicate IETF endorsement. It also does not constitute a standard and may even not result in any work at the IETF.

So let’s look at what’s happening in BGP land.

Can BGP Communities be harmful? 

In the recent paper “BGP Communities: Even more Worms in the Routing Can“, the authors demonstrated that Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) communities can be exploited by remote parties to influence routing in Continue reading

Slim: OS kernel support for a low-overhead container overlay network

Slim: OS kernel support for a low-overhead container overlay network Zhuo et al., NSDI’19

Container overlay networks rely on packet transformations, with each packet traversing the networking stack twice on its way from the sending container to the receiving container.

There are CPU, throughput, and latency overheads associated with those traversals.

In this paper, we ask whether we can design and implement a container overlay network, where packets go through the OS kernel’s network stack only once. This requires us to remove packet transformation from the overlay network’s data-plane. Instead, we implement network virtualization by manipulating connection-level metadata at connection setup time, saving CPU cycles and reducing packet latency.

Slim comes with some caveats: it requires a kernel module for secure deployment, has longer connection establishment times, doesn’t fit with packet-based network policies, and only handles TCP traffic. For UDP, ICMP, and for its own service discovery, it also relies on an existing container overlay network (Weave Net). But for longer lasting connections managed using connection-based network policies it delivers some impressive results:

  • memcached throughput up by 71%, with latency reduced by 42%, and CPU utilisation reduced by 56%.
  • Nginx CPU utilisation reduced by 22-24%
  • PostgreSQL Continue reading

The Serverlist Newsletter: Serverless Benchmarks, Workers.dev, security implications of serverless cloud computing, and more

Check out our third edition of The Serverlist below. Get the latest scoop on the serverless space, get your hands dirty with new developer tutorials, engage in conversations with other serverless developers, and find upcoming meetups and conferences to attend.

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Migration Strategy: Moving From MPLS/LDP to Segment Routing

MPLS core networks that use Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) are common in SP core networks and have served us well. So, the thought of pulling the guts out of the core is pretty daunting and invites the question why you would want to perform open-heart surgery on such critical infrastructure.   This article attempts to explain the benefits that would accrue from such a move and gives a high-level view of a migration strategy.

Why Do I Need Segment Routing?

  • Simplicity:   LDP was invented as a label distribution protocol for MPLS because nobody wanted to go back to the standards bodies to re-invent OSPF or IS-IS so that they could carry labels.  A pragmatic decision, but one that results in networks having to run two protocols.  Two protocols means twice the complexity.  
    Segment Routing simplifies things by allowing you to turn off LDP.  Instead it carries label (or Segment ID) information in extensions to the IGP.  This then leaves you with only IS-IS or OSPF to troubleshoot.  As Da Vinci reportedly said, ‘simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’. 

  • Scale:  LDP scales, but for fast convergence RSVP-TE is often used to tunnel LDP across a core. RSVP requires core routers to Continue reading

IPv6 Buzz 022: Critical Security Differences Between IPv4 And IPv6

There are a few critical security differences between IPv4 and IPv6, including host addressing and extension headers. In today's IPv6 Buzz episode, we examine these differences, and other v6 security issues, with guest Eric Vyncke, a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco and co-author of the book "IPv6 Security."

The post IPv6 Buzz 022: Critical Security Differences Between IPv4 And IPv6 appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Cisco directs high priority patches for IP phone security exposures

Cisco this week advised customers using its 7800 and 8800 series IP phones they should patch a variety of high-priority vulnerabilities that could lead to denial of service and other security problems.The company issued five security advisories, four for the 8800 and one for both the 8800 and 7800 series of IP phones. The 8800 is a high-end business desktop device that features high-definition video and mobile device integration. The 7800 is more of a general business IP phone.  Learn about 5g networks: How enterprises can prep for 5G networks 5G vs 4G: How speed, latency and apps support differ Private 5G networks are coming 5G and 6G wireless have security issues How millimeter-wave wireless could help support 5G and IoT The security advisories include:To read this article in full, please click here

Cisco directs high priority patches for IP phone security exposures

Cisco this week advised customers using its 7800 and 8800 series IP phones they should patch a variety of high-priority vulnerabilities that could lead to denial of service and other security problems.The company issued five security advisories, four for the 8800 and one for both the 8800 and 7800 series of IP phones. The 8800 is a high-end business desktop device that features high-definition video and mobile device integration. The 7800 is more of a general business IP phone.  Learn about 5g networks: How enterprises can prep for 5G networks 5G vs 4G: How speed, latency and apps support differ Private 5G networks are coming 5G and 6G wireless have security issues How millimeter-wave wireless could help support 5G and IoT The security advisories include:To read this article in full, please click here

Writing an API at the Edge with Workers and Cloud Firestore

We’re super stoked about bringing you Workers.dev, and we’re even more stoked at every opportunity we have to dogfood Workers. Using what we create keeps us tuned in to the developer experience, which takes a good deal of guesswork out of drawing our roadmaps.

Our goal with Workers.dev is to provide a way to deploy JavaScript code to our network of 165 data centers without requiring developers to register a domain with Cloudflare first. While we gear up for general availability, we wanted to provide users an opportunity to reserve their favorite subdomain in a fair and consistent way, so we built a system to allow visitors to reserve a subdomain where their Workers will live once Workers.dev is released. This is the story of how we wrote the system backing that submission process.

Requirements

Of course, we always want to use the best tool for the job, so designing the Workers that would back Workers.dev started with an inventory of constraints and user experience expectations:

Constraints

  1. We want to limit reservations to one per email address. It’s no fun if someone writes a bot to claim every good Workers subdomain in ten seconds; they Continue reading

Buzzword bingo: NetDevOps edition

Looking at the marketing landscape for IT, you could be forgiven for thinking that the current strategy was to dynamite a word factory and use the resulting debris as marketing content. DevSecOps. NetDevOps. Ops, ops, spam, eggs, spam, and DevSpamOps.

The naming trend lends itself easily to parody, but it began as shorthand for an attempt to solve real IT problems. And its iterations have more in common than a resemblance to alphabet salad. What lies beneath the buzzwords? And do you need to care?

Countless companies have jumped on the NetDevOps bandwagon, all with their own way of doing things; and most are utterly incompatible with everyone else. Some may have already abandoned the NetDevOps craze, believing it to be nothing but marketing hype wrapped around a YAML parser and some scripts. Others might have found a system that works for them and swear by it, using nothing else for provisioning.

Regardless of views, a system that allows for rapid provisioning and re-provisioning of applications, containers, virtual machines, and network infrastructure is paramount.

Ministry of Silly Names: A History

The modern era of namesmashing started with DevOps. This made a sort of sense because, before this, IT had Continue reading

The Blogging Mirror

Writing isn’t always the easiest thing in the world to do. Coming up with topics is hard, but so too is making those topics into a blog post. I find myself getting briefings on a variety of subjects all the time, especially when it comes to networking. But translating those briefings into blog posts isn’t always straight forward. When I find myself stuck and ready to throw in the towel I find it easy to think about things backwards.

A World Of Pure Imagination

When people plan blog posts, they often think about things in a top-down manner. They come up with a catchy title, then an amusing anecdote to open the post. Then they hit the main idea, find a couple of supporting arguments, and then finally they write a conclusion that ties it all together. Sound like a winning formula?

Except when it isn’t. How about when the title doesn’t reflect the content of the post? Or the anecdote or lead in doesn’t quite fit with the overall tone? How about when the blog starts meandering away from the main idea halfway through with a totally separate argument? Or when the conclusion is actually the place where the Continue reading

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