Unequal-Cost Multipath with BGP DMZ Link Bandwidth

In the previous blog post in this series, I described why it’s (almost) impossible to implement unequal-cost multipathing for anycast services (multiple servers advertising the same IP address or range) with OSPF. Now let’s see how easy it is to solve the same challenge with BGP DMZ Link Bandwidth attribute.

I didn’t want to listen to the fan noise generated by my measly Intel NUC when simulating a full leaf-and-spine fabric, so I decided to implement a slightly smaller network:

VMware Redefines Security After a Surge in Attacks

Enterprise virtualization software giant VMware says it is “redefining” security as it seeks to help customers meet the challenges associated with a skyrocketing number of threats, more numerous attack vectors, and having fewer human resources at their disposal to help keep attacks at bay. “So what we’re asking all of these IT security teams to do is essentially to do more — and there’s a lot more complexity,” 2020 Threat Landscape report results, 81% of the survey respondents reported a breach during the past 12 months — with four out of the five breaches (82%) deemed material. At the Continue reading

Tools 8. Visual Analysis of the Network Path with Open Source Databases and Python

Hello my friend,

Over the past several articles we have taken a look into the most popular tools for the network troubleshooting. To be precise, we have covered an approach to find your public IP address in a programmable way, how to measure your Internet connectivity speed with Speedtest, how to measure the connectivity speed between your endpoints using iPerf, rapid check of hosts presence in the network with fping, how to check the quality of the path through the network with MTR, and how to see what are in the packets you have in your network. Covering these tools for you and sharing ideas about automation with them led us to creating a new open source tool, which we are happy to share with the community. This time we decided not to think long on its name and just called it the Traceroute Analyzer.

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What is the network automation?

Continue reading

Tech Bytes: Wi-Fi 6E – New Spectrum, New Opportunities (Sponsored)

Today’s Tech Bytes podcast dives into Wi-Fi 6E, the extended version of the Wi-Fi 6 standard that takes advantage of newly available spectrum in the 6 GHz band. We’re sponsored today by Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, and we’ll explore highlights of the standard and discuss Aruba’s forthcoming 6E AP.

The post Tech Bytes: Wi-Fi 6E – New Spectrum, New Opportunities (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Tech Bytes: Wi-Fi 6E – New Spectrum, New Opportunities (Sponsored)

Broadband Options: Fiber, Satellite, and Wi-Fi, Oh My!

Network Break 336: Cisco Announces Cloud ACI And More; Amazon Borrows Wi-Fi Without Asking

Network Break 336: Cisco Announces Cloud ACI And More; Amazon Borrows Wi-Fi Without Asking

Cisco debuts Cloud ACI to unify segmentation policies on prem and in the public cloud, Amazon will activate an opt-out mesh network using your Ring and Echo devices, Microsoft buys an IoT security company, and more tech news in this week's Network Break podcast.

The post Network Break 336: Cisco Announces Cloud ACI And More; Amazon Borrows Wi-Fi Without Asking appeared first on Packet Pushers.

The Week in Internet News: Yet Another Ransomware Attack

Where’s the beef? Cybercriminals, likely from Russia, shut down a Brazilian meatpacker’s operation for a couple of days using ransomware, Reuters reports. The attack on JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, came just weeks after ransomware, also likely from Russia, shut down the Colonial Pipeline in the U.S. for several days. The U.S. FBI blamed the […]

The post The Week in Internet News: Yet Another Ransomware Attack appeared first on Internet Society.

What you can find out asking which, whereis and whatis in Linux

The which, whereis and whatis commands on a Linux system provide information about commands. They provide related but not identical information. In this post, we’ll check out the differences and provide a script for getting information that’s available from all three commands. We’ll also explore some sample commands for looking at secondary (i.e., not section 1) man pages.which The which command will show you the file-system location for a command’s executable. This is the file that is read and run whenever you type the command name.$ which date /usr/bin/date $ which shutdown /usr/sbin/shutdown Summarizing your command-line usage on Linux The which command will also report on your aliases and show you the commands they invoke.To read this article in full, please click here

What you can find out asking which, whereis and whatis in Linux

The which, whereis and whatis commands on a Linux system provide information about commands. They provide related but not identical information. In this post, we’ll check out the differences and provide a script for getting information that’s available from all three commands. We’ll also explore some sample commands for looking at secondary (i.e., not section 1) man pages.which The which command will show you the file-system location for a command’s executable. This is the file that is read and run whenever you type the command name.$ which date /usr/bin/date $ which shutdown /usr/sbin/shutdown Summarizing your command-line usage on Linux The which command will also report on your aliases and show you the commands they invoke.To read this article in full, please click here

Feedback: Azure Networking

When I started developing AWS- and Azure Networking webinars, I wondered whether they would make sense – after all, you can easily find tons of training offerings focused on public cloud services.

However, it looks like most of those materials focus on developers (no wonder – they are the most significant audience), with little thought being given to the needs of network engineers… at least according to the feedback left by one of ipSpace.net subscribers.

Feedback: Azure Networking

When I started developing AWS- and Azure Networking webinars, I wondered whether they would make sense – after all, you can easily find tons of training offerings focused on public cloud services.

However, it looks like most of those materials focus on developers (no wonder – they are the most significant audience), with little thought being given to the needs of network engineers… at least according to the feedback left by one of ipSpace.net subscribers.

Worth Reading: The Neuroscience of Busyness

In the Neuroscience of Busyness article, Cal Newport describes an interesting phenomenon: when solving problems, we tend to add components instead of removing them.

If that doesn’t describe a typical network (or protocol) design, I don’t know what does. At least now we have a scientific basis to justify our behavior ;)

Worth Reading: The Neuroscience of Busyness

In the Neuroscience of Busyness article, Cal Newport describes an interesting phenomenon: when solving problems, we tend to add components instead of removing them.

If that doesn’t describe a typical network (or protocol) design, I don’t know what does. At least now we have a scientific basis to justify our behavior ;)

EVE-NG Cloud NAT

This post explains how to configure EVE-NG as a DHCP server (isc-dhcp-server) assigning IPs to lab devices that are then dynamically NATed behind the primary EVE management IP address (iptables masquerade) to provide Internet breakout.

Worth Reading: Switching to IP fabrics

Namex, an Italian IXP, decided to replace their existing peering fabric with a fully automated leaf-and-spine fabric using VXLAN and EVPN running on Cumulus Linux.

They documented the design, deployment process, and automation scripts they developed in an extensive blog post that’s well worth reading. Enjoy ;)

Worth Reading: Switching to IP fabrics

Namex, an Italian IXP, decided to replace their existing peering fabric with a fully automated leaf-and-spine fabric using VXLAN and EVPN running on Cumulus Linux.

They documented the design, deployment process, and automation scripts they developed in an extensive blog post that’s well worth reading. Enjoy ;)

MikroTik – RouterOSv7 first look – MLAG on CRS 3xx switches

What is MLAG?

Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation Group or MLAG is an idea that’s been around for a while.

It allows for the ability to form LACP channels across multiple physical switches.

Wikipedia shows a few different topology examples here

Vendor implementations are proprietary but the idea of MLAG was first mentioned in 802.1AX-2008 in 2008.

It first started to become popular in data center networking in the late 2000s

What makes the addition of MLAG to MikroTik’s RouterOS feature set notable is that it lowers the barrier to entry for this particular feature.

CRS 3xx switches are very inexpensive (starting at $149 USD) and may very well be the lowest cost MLAG capable hardware available on the market.

Introduced in 7.1beta6

MLAG has been asked for by the MikroTik community a number of times and the most active feature request thread started here in 2020:

new feature request MLAG!!! – MikroTik

MikroTik added several version 7 beta releases in 2021 and included MLAG for all CRS 3xx series switches in 7.1beta6 on May 18th, 2021.

Overview of protocol requirements

MLAG is fairly consistent across vendors with the need Continue reading

New Cisco servers embrace hybrid cloud

Cisco has added a new class of servers to its Unified Computing System that are more flexible and outfitted with management software geared to hybrid cloud.The UCS X-Series is the first major redisign since UCS hit the market in 2009. The company says the modular hardware architecture is future-proofed because it can accomodate new generations of processors, storage, nonvolatile memory, accelerators, and interconnects as they come along. Prior UCS chassis were either blade systems for power efficiency or rack systems for expandability, but the UCS X-Series combines both in the same chassis.This means the single server type is able to support a broader range of tasks, from virtualized workloads, traditional enterprise applications, and databases to private cloud and cloud-native applications. The individual modules are interconnected into a fabric that can support IP networking, Fibre Channel SAN, and management connectivity.To read this article in full, please click here