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Category Archives for "Networking"

A one-line Kubernetes fix that saved 600 hours a year

Every time we restarted Atlantis, the tool we use to plan and apply Terraform changes, we’d be stuck for 30 minutes waiting for it to come back up. No plans, no applies, no infrastructure changes for any repository managed by Atlantis. With roughly 100 restarts a month for credential rotations and unboarding, that added up to over 50 hours of blocked engineering time every month, and paged the on-call engineer every time.

This was ultimately caused by a safe default in Kubernetes that had silently become a bottleneck as the persistent volume used by Atlantis grew to millions of files. Here’s how we tracked it down and fixed it with a one-line change.

Mysteriously slow restarts

We manage dozens of Terraform projects with GitLab merge requests (MRs) using Atlantis, which handles planning and applying. It enforces locking to ensure that only one MR can modify a project at a time. 

It runs on Kubernetes as a singleton StatefulSet and relies on a Kubernetes PersistentVolume (PV) to keep track of repository state on disk. Whenever a Terraform project needs to be onboarded or offboarded, or credentials used by Terraform are updated, we have to restart Atlantis to pick Continue reading

Worth Reading: Securing NTP and the Origins of Time

Geoff Huston published an article supposedly describing the challenge of securing NTP, but as is usually the case, he couldn’t skip the prior art going all the way back (almost) to the formation of Earth.

Before coming to the how do we secure NTP section, you’ll learn everything about the wobbly Earth rotation, the changes in the Earth’s angular speed, the impact of tides, the smearing of leap seconds, the differences between UT1 and UTC, why we use quasars to measure time, and everything there is to know about NTP. Have fun!

TCG072: AI and the Automation Engineer – When Your Scripts Start Writing Themselves

William Collins and Eyvonne Sharp invite Skylar Sands, Senior Automation Engineer at World Wide Technology, to discuss what it means to integrate AI into the daily workflow in a meaningful way. Together they break down the shift in the automation engineer’s role now that AI can instantly generate the “toolkit” of Python, Ansible, and Bash,... Read more »

D2DO298: Spacelift Intelligence: Infrastructure Keeping Pace with AI-Enhanced Development (Sponsored)

On today’s sponsored episode, Ned Bellavance and Kyler Middleton welcome guest Marcin Wyszynski, Head of R&D at Spacelift to guide them through the potential future of IaC and how AI is changing the landscape of developer productivity, especially around infrastructure. They discuss two of Spacelift’s products, Spacelift Intent and Spacelift Intelligence. Spacelift Intent is an... Read more »

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For organizations in telecommunications, financial services, healthcare, and public infrastructure, the driver for running inference at the edge is not to reduce milliseconds. It is because the data cannot legally leave the building, the country, or the jurisdiction.

 


Internet number resources are not political property. They are operator-held assets embedded in functioning networks.

 


Just over half of U.S. teens say they have used chatbots for help with schoolwork, and 12% say they’ve gotten emotional support. More teens think AI will be positive for them than negative

 


You’ll use AI and like it too – if you work for PwC. Paul Griggs, US chief executive of the global professional services giant, has made clear there is no room at the corporation for AI skeptics.

 


For some time, I have been looking after a routing analysis report called the “CIDR Report”. Here I’d like to explain the reasons for this report, and what is in the report and share some thoughts as to its usefulness today to the Internet routing community.

PP102: What’s Driving SASE Adoption?

Spending on SASE, which combines SD-WAN and cloud-delivered security, is forecast to nearly triple over the next few years, according to Dell’Oro Group. Today on Packet Protector we talk with that forecast’s author about what’s driving that spending. We also explore how SASE vendors are differentiating, architectural considerations for SASE deployments, pros and cons of... Read more »

Sandboxing AI agents, 100x faster

Last September we introduced Code Mode, the idea that agents should perform tasks not by making tool calls, but instead by writing code that calls APIs. We've shown that simply converting an MCP server into a TypeScript API can cut token usage by 81%. We demonstrated that Code Mode can also operate behind an MCP server instead of in front of it, creating the new Cloudflare MCP server that exposes the entire Cloudflare API with just two tools and under 1,000 tokens.

But if an agent (or an MCP server) is going to execute code generated on-the-fly by AI to perform tasks, that code needs to run somewhere, and that somewhere needs to be secure. You can't just eval() AI-generated code directly in your app: a malicious user could trivially prompt the AI to inject vulnerabilities.

You need a sandbox: a place to execute code that is isolated from your application and from the rest of the world, except for the specific capabilities the code is meant to access.

Sandboxing is a hot topic in the AI industry. For this task, most people are reaching for containers. Using a Linux-based container, you can start up any sort of Continue reading

Worth Reading: Why We’ve Tried to Replace Developers Every Decade

The never-ending “we will replace developers” (or networking engineers) pipe dream didn’t start with the latest bout of AI hype (or SDN). As Stephan Schwab explains in his Why We’ve Tried to Replace Developers Every Decade article, it started with COBOL, the magic high-level programming language that businesspeople would use to write their own programs.

At least some of us know how well that ended. I was also unfortunate to be there for the 5GL hype, the forms-driven programming hype, the “everyone will solve every problem out there with Excel macros” (it does work for networking inventory, doesn’t it?), and a few others. So please excuse me if I remain a bit skeptical about the latest fad, even though I find it (like all the previous ones) very useful when used conservatively in limited domains.

Pura Segara Kidul: Jejak Spiritual dan Kearifan Budaya di Pesisir Selatan Bali

Sejarah dan Latar Belakang Pura Segara Kidul

Pura Segara Kidul berdiri sebagai simbol kuat hubungan manusia dan alam laut. Pura ini berkembang dari tradisi leluhur Bali. Masyarakat pesisir membangun pura sebagai bentuk penghormatan spiritual. Selain itu, pura ini terhubung erat dengan konsep Tri Hita Karana.

Pada awalnya, masyarakat memanfaatkan pura sebagai tempat memohon keselamatan. Oleh karena itu, para nelayan sering melakukan persembahyangan sebelum melaut. Seiring waktu, peran pura semakin luas. Bahkan, pura menjadi pusat kegiatan keagamaan penting. Dengan demikian, Pura Segara Kidul memiliki nilai sejarah dan spiritual tinggi.

Makna Spiritual dan Filosofi Sakral

Makna spiritual Pura Segara Kidul sangat mendalam. Pura ini melambangkan keseimbangan antara manusia dan kekuatan laut. Selain itu, pura juga mencerminkan rasa syukur terhadap anugerah alam. Karena itu, umat Hindu rutin menggelar upacara khusus.

Selanjutnya, masyarakat meyakini laut sebagai sumber kehidupan. Oleh sebab itu, pura mengajarkan sikap hormat terhadap alam. Bahkan, filosofi ini menanamkan kesadaran lingkungan. Dengan kata lain, Pura Continue reading

Fakta Ilmiah Awan: Struktur, Fungsi, dan Dinamika Atmosfer

Massa dan Komposisi Awan

Secara ilmiah, awan merupakan agregat tetesan air dan kristal es yang tersuspensi di atmosfer. Setiap tetesan memiliki diameter antara 10 hingga 50 mikrometer, namun jumlahnya bisa mencapai jutaan per meter kubik udara. Akibatnya, bobot satu awan cumulus rata-rata mencapai satu juta ton. Meskipun demikian, awan tetap melayang karena adanya gaya buoyancy yang dihasilkan oleh udara panas dan arus konveksi. Proses ini menyeimbangkan gaya gravitasi sehingga awan mampu tetap stabil di berbagai ketinggian.

Dinamika Pergerakan Awan

Pergerakan awan dikendalikan oleh angin atmosfer dan perbedaan tekanan. Di lapisan troposfer, angin dapat mencapai kecepatan lebih dari 200 km/jam pada ketinggian tertentu, terutama di jet stream. Awan cirrus, yang berada di ketinggian 6–12 km, bergerak lebih cepat dibanding awan rendah karena dipengaruhi oleh aliran angin kuat di lapisan atas. Selain itu, konveksi lokal dan sistem tekanan rendah juga memicu pergerakan horizontal dan vertikal awan, memengaruhi distribusi hujan serta pola cuaca regional.

Spektrum Warna Awan

Warna awan tergantung pada interaksi cahaya matahari dengan tetesan air atau kristal es. Secara ilmiah, awan putih terjadi karena Continue reading

The Why and What of the CIDR Report

For some time, I have been looking after a routing analysis report called the "". Here I'd like to explain the reasons for this report, and what is in the report and share some thoughts as to its usefulness today to the Internet routing community.

The Why and What of the CIDR Report

For some time, I have been looking after a routing analysis report called the "CIDR Report". Here I'd like to explain the reasons for this report, and what is in the report and share some thoughts as to its usefulness today to the Internet routing community.

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The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), a machine that profoundly reshaped computing, marked its 80th anniversary on 15 February 2026. ENIAC was a technological leap that laid the foundation for the modern computing revolution and eventually transformed nearly every aspect of society.

 


During the APNIC Routing Security SIG session, held at APRICOT 2026 in Jakarta, the community heard about six applications of Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) to the problem of secure Internet routing.

 


There is no doubt that automation offers benefits such as speed, accuracy, reliability, and efficiency, and goes far beyond simple configuration management tasks, including resource provisioning. However, it may not be a good fit for every infrastructure environment. One must evaluate and compare the pros and cons before adopting automation.

 


Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses are a privacy nightmare, with footage of naked people, sensitive information, and violent acts captured and seen by Meta’s AI and an army of employees.

 


MOSAIC ditches lasers for cheap MicroLEDs and medical imaging fiber, cuts cabling energy by up to 50%, and already fits in a standard transceiver after a proof-of-concept with MediaTek.

How to deploy Pi-Hole with Docker and stop ads on every device on your LAN

How do you block ads? Most people install various and sundry ad-blocking software on their computers or add browser extensions to handle the task.  Either way you go, blocking ads can help prevent your web browser from loading ads that could consume too many system resources or even inject malicious code into your system. I’ve had instances where a single ad bogged down my CPU so much that the computer came to a screeching halt. The only solution was a hard reboot. After that, I was on a quest to do whatever it took to avoid another such instance. At first, I thought about going the browser extension route, but I realized I’d have to install extensions on every browser I used on every desktop and laptop on my home network. That’s all fine and good if you only have a few machines connected to your LAN. But what if you have considerably more? You might want to consider an app like Pi-Hole.

Inside Gen 13: how we built our most powerful server yet

A few months ago, Cloudflare announced the transition to FL2, our Rust-based rewrite of Cloudflare's core request handling layer. This transition accelerates our ability to help build a better Internet for everyone. With the migration in the software stack, Cloudflare has refreshed our server hardware design with improved hardware capabilities and better efficiency to serve the evolving demands of our network and software stack. Gen 13 is designed with 192-core AMD EPYC™ Turin 9965 processor, 768 GB of DDR5-6400 memory, 24 TB of PCIe 5.0 NVMe storage, and dual 100 GbE port network interface card.

Gen 13 delivers:

  • Up to 2x throughput compared to Gen 12 while staying within latency SLA

  • Up to 50% improvement in performance / watt efficiency, reducing data center expansion costs

  • Up to 60% higher throughput per rack keeping rack power budget constant

  • 2x memory capacity, 1.5x storage capacity, 4x network bandwidth

  • Introduced PCIe encryption hardware support in addition to memory encryption

  • Improved support for thermally demanding powerful drop-in PCIe accelerators

This blog post covers the engineering rationale behind each major component selection: what we evaluated, what we chose, and why.

Generation

Gen 13 Compute

Previous Gen 12 Compute

Form Factor

2U1N, Single Continue reading

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