From Python to Go 007. (Data)Classes, Structs, and Custom Data Types.
Hello my friend,
Today we are going to talk about the last data type, which in generally exists in Python and Go (Golang), and which we need dearly for all meaningful applications including network and IT infrastructure automation. We are talking about structured, typed data, which is represented in Python in form of objects and classes and in Go (Golang) in form of structs. These structures are truly powerful and once you figure out how to use them, I’m quite confident you will be using it everywhere, where you can.
You Talk So Much About Go (Golang), But You Offer Python In Trainings. Why?
This question I’ve been asked rather frequently recently. Indeed, why do we in each blog post talk about Network Automation Trainings, which gravitate around Python/Ansible duet. The answer is straightforward: whilst Go (Golang) is very powerful as we showing it in these blogs, its usage in many cases is justified only in very high-scale environment. For majority of networks and IT systems, Python is great. It is suffice to say that entire OpenStack is built in Python. And ourselves we use it extensively in many customers’ systems. Go (Golang) is useful as extension of automation skills, Continue reading
Worth Reading: Hard Truths about AI-assisted Coding
Addy Osmani published an excellent overview of the challenges of AI-assisted coding. They apply equally well to the “AI will generate device configurations for me” or “AI will troubleshoot my network” ideas (ignoring for the moment the impact of the orders-of-magnitude smaller training set), so it’s definitely worth reading.
I particularly liked the “AI is like having a very eager junior developer on your team” take, as well as the description of the “70% problem” (AI will get you 70% there, but the last 30% will be frustrating) – a phenomenon perfectly illustrated by the following diagram by Forrest Brazeal:
Hedge 253: Touch Grass!
In this episode of the Hedge, Eyvonne, Tom, and Russ talk about whether Intel will survive, centralization and industrial spying, and why you need to go touch grass and read a book.
N4N007: Performance vs. Cost
When building your network and buying equipment, is performance or cost more important? On today’s episode, we discuss the balance between performance and cost in selecting networking equipment. We also cover other considerations, including why you should understand client and network needs, the fluid nature of pricing, and the necessity of creative problem-solving. Bonus material: ... Read more »TNO011: Behind the NetOps Curtain at Cisco Live!
Ever wonder how large conferences such as Cisco Live! manage their on-site network operations? Today’s podcast guest, Jason Davis joins host Scott Robohn to discuss history of network operations at Cisco Live!, and the intricacies, challenges, and strategies involved in setting up and managing network operations for such a large event. Episode Guest: Jason Davis, ... Read more »HN761: Who Are You Building Automation For? An AutoCon2 Roundtable
Today’s Heavy Networking comes to you from the AutoCon2 tech event being held in Westminster, Colorado. This episode was recorded in conference room on site at AutoCon2 in November, 2024. The format? Roundtable. Four network automators have raised their hand and brought topics they want to discuss. Those topics include: Crafting tools to “listen” to... Read more »Use Disaggregated BGP Prefixes to Influence Inbound Internet Traffic
As much as I love explaining how to use BGP in an optimal way, sometimes we have to do what we know is bad to get the job done. For example, if you have to deal with clueless ISPs who cannot figure out how to use BGP communities, you might be forced to use the Big Hammer of disaggregated prefixes. You can practice how that works in the next BGP lab exercise.
Click here to start the lab in your browser using GitHub Codespaces (or set up your own lab infrastructure). After starting the lab environment, change the directory to policy/b-disaggregate and execute netlab up.
TL009: Shifting to a Growth Mindset for Organizational Success
A growth mindset not only advances you, but can help to advance those around you. Today we delve into the concept of a growth mindset with guest Sasha Czarkowski. We contrast the growth mindset with a fixed mindset, highlighting the latter’s detrimental effects on creativity and learning. The discussion also highlights the importance of psychological... Read more »N4N006: Packet Analysis Basics
Packet analysis can be your friend for troubleshooting network problems. In this episode, hosts Ethan Banks and Holly Metlitzky explore packet analysis, They discuss tools such as Wireshark and Tcpdump, explain their functionalities, and talk about the importance of filtering data for effective analysis. Listeners are encouraged to engage with Wireshark and other tools themselves.... Read more »Video: Internet Routing Security (DEEP 2023)
My Internet Routing Security talk from last year’s DEEP conference (a shorter version of the Internet Routing Security webinar) is now available on YouTube.
Hope you’ll find it useful ;)
D2DO260: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs: Humor and Threat Detection
Humor is the best medicine, so they say. In critical IT security jobs, a little humor could help you prevent burnout and maintain your mental equilibrium. Lydia Graslie, a Cloud Threat Detection Engineer at Edward Jones, shares her insights on the complexities of cloud security and the challenges posed by modern cloud platforms, as well... Read more »Getting Started with Infrahub
If you're in the Network Automation space or attended one of the last two Autocon events, you might have come across a new tool called 'Infrahub' from OpsMill. I've been keeping an eye on it and experimenting with the product for some time now. In this blog post, we'll cover how to install Infrahub, what it is, and walk through a simple example to get you started. Let's dive in.
Infrahub Installation
Installing Infrahub is straightforward if you're familiar with Docker and have it installed. For this example, I'm using an Ubuntu 22.04 server with Docker and Docker Compose already set up. Here's all I had to do.
- Clone the Infrahub repository
- Run a single docker command to bring up the services
suresh@infrahub:~$ git clone https://github.com/opsmill/infrahub.git
Cloning into 'infrahub'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 95389, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (5707/5707), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2801/2801), done.
remote: Total 95389 (delta 3698), reused 4482 (delta 2877), pack-reused 89682
Receiving objects: 100% (95389/95389), 136.18 MiB | 40.26 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (69451/69451), done.suresh@infrahub:~$ cd infrahub/
suresh@infrahub:~/infrahub$ docker-compose up -d[+] Running 70/7
✔ message-queue 10 layers [⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿] 0B/0B Pulled
✔ task-manager 13 layers Continue readingPP043: The Perils and Perks of the CISO Track
A Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) helps to architect and drive an organization’s security strategy. The role requires technical chops and business acumen. You also need strong communication skills to help executives understand risk and response, choose the right metrics to measure infosec effectiveness, and provide guidance to the technical teams actually running security operations.... Read more »HW042: The Past, Present, and Future of MetaGeek
In this episode of the Heavy Wireless podcast, host Keith Parsons interviews Brian Tuttle, co-founder of MetaGeek. Brian recounts the company’s origins, starting with the development of the WiSpy spectrum analyzer, and highlights key products like inSSIDer and Chanalyzer. The discussion covers MetaGeek’s mission to visualize wireless landscapes, the impact of their tools on network... Read more »Robotcop: enforcing your robots.txt policies and stopping bots before they reach your website
Cloudflare’s AI Audit dashboard allows you to easily understand how AI companies and services access your content. AI Audit gives a summary of request counts broken out by bot, detailed path summaries for more granular insights, and the ability to filter by categories like AI Search or AI Crawler.
Today, we're going one step further. You can now quickly see which AI services are honoring your robots.txt policies, which aren’t, and then programmatically enforce these policies.
Robots.txt is a plain text file hosted on your domain that implements the Robots Exclusion Protocol, a standard that has been around since 1994. This file tells crawlers like Google, Bing, and many others which parts of your site, if any, they are allowed to access.
There are many reasons why site owners would want to define which portions of their websites crawlers are allowed to access: they might not want certain content available on search engines or social networks, they might trust one platform more than another, or they might simply want to reduce automated traffic to their servers.
With the advent of generative AI, AI services have started crawling the Internet to Continue reading
IBGP Source Interface Selection Still Requires Configuration
A fellow networking engineer recently remarked, “FRRouting automatically selects the correct [IBGP] source interface even when not configured explicitly.”
TL&DR: No, it does not. You were just lucky.
Basics first1. BGP runs over TCP sessions. One of the first things a router does when establishing a BGP session with a configured neighbor is to open a TCP session with the configured neighbor’s IP address.