HS086: [Next] Highlights: Drone to Titan, and More!
In this episode, John and Johna share the findings from the recent [Next] conference that most inspired them: How to project-manage an 18-year effort to put a drone on Titan, why AI algorithms need to consider the factor of time, how to train robots, and why effective storytelling is an essential tool in a technology... Read more »
Is this thing on? Using OpenBMC and ACPI power states for reliable server boot
At Cloudflare, we provide a range of services through our global network of servers, located in 330 cities worldwide. When you interact with our long-standing application services, or newer services like Workers AI, you’re in contact with one of our fleet of thousands of servers which support those services.
These servers which provide Cloudflare services are managed by a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC). The BMC is a special purpose processor — different from the Central Processing Unit (CPU) of a server — whose sole purpose is ensuring a smooth operation of the server.
Regardless of the server vendor, each server has this BMC. The BMC runs independently of the CPU and has its own embedded operating system, usually referred to as firmware. At Cloudflare, we customize and deploy a server-specific version of the BMC firmware. The BMC firmware we deploy at Cloudflare is based on the Linux Foundation Project for BMCs, OpenBMC. OpenBMC is an open-sourced firmware stack designed to work across a variety of systems including enterprise, telco, and cloud-scale data centers. The open-source nature of OpenBMC gives us greater flexibility and ownership of this critical server subsystem, instead of the closed nature of proprietary firmware. Continue reading
Building Vectorize, a distributed vector database, on Cloudflare’s Developer Platform
Vectorize is a globally distributed vector database that enables you to build full-stack, AI-powered applications with Cloudflare Workers. Vectorize makes querying embeddings — representations of values or objects like text, images, audio that are designed to be consumed by machine learning models and semantic search algorithms — faster, easier and more affordable.
In this post, we dive deep into how we built Vectorize on Cloudflare’s Developer Platform, leveraging Cloudflare’s global network, Cache, Workers, R2, Queues, Durable Objects, and container platform.
A vector database is a queryable store of vectors. A vector is a large array of numbers called vector dimensions.
A vector database has a similarity search query: given an input vector, it returns the vectors that are closest according to a specified metric, potentially filtered on their metadata.
Vector databases are used to power semantic search, document classification, and recommendation and anomaly detection, as well as contextualizing answers generated by LLMs (Retrieval Augmented Generation, RAG).
Conventional data structures like B-trees, or binary search trees expect the data they index to be cheap to compare and to follow Continue reading
Caddy Reverse Proxy With Docker
I currently run multiple Docker containers across two hosts, each hosting various applications on different ports. UniFi Controller exposes the web GUI on 8443, Pi-hole on 8080, and Memos on 5230. Remembering each port number for every application started to become a hassle.
Additionally, most of these applications, like Pi-hole and Memos, do not support HTTPS out of the box. After searching for a solution to simplify this setup, I found that Caddy Reverse Proxy offers one of the simplest and most effective ways to manage these services. In this blog post, we’ll look at how to use Caddy Reverse Proxy with my Docker containers running across two hosts.
What is a Reverse Proxy?
A reverse proxy is a server that sits in front of one or more web servers and forwards client requests to them. It acts as an intermediary, handling incoming traffic and distributing it to the appropriate server. This setup can help improve security, manage SSL/TLS encryption, and simplify network traffic management by consolidating multiple services under a single domain.
What is Caddy?
Caddy is an open-source web server and reverse proxy software that is known for its simplicity and ease of use. It automatically handles HTTPS Continue reading
Lab: Configure IS-IS on Point-to-Point Links
From a very high-level perspective, OSPF and IS-IS are quite similar. Both were created in the Stone Age of networking, and both differentiate between multi-access LAN segments and point-to-point serial interfaces. Unfortunately, that approach no longer works in the Ethernet Everywhere world where most of the point-to-point links look like LAN segments, so we always have to change the default settings to make an IGP work better.
That’s what you’ll do in today’s lab exercise, which also explains the behind-the-scenes differences between point-to-point and multi-access links and the intricate world of three-way handshake.
ADCS Cert Templates for ISE Lab
In my ISE lab I’m going to be using EAP-TLS and TEAP, which means I’ll be needing user and computer certificates. The goal is to be able to enable the 802.1X supplicant via GPO and to distribute certificates automatically without requiring any user input. Another post will cover GPO, in this post I’ll cover creating the certificate templates in ADCS.
When opening the CA app, there are a number of templates provided by default:
There are already templates for User and Computer, but it’s better to leave the default templates alone and create new ones. First, we’ll create a template for user certificates. Start by right clicking Certificate Templates and selecting Manage:
Then we’re going to right click the User template and select Duplicate Template:
This is going to open up a new window with properties of the template:
Go to General and give the template a name:
Don’t select the Do not automatically reenroll option or it won’t be possible to renew certs before they expire.
Then go to Request Handling. We’re going to uncheck the Allow private key to be exported option as this is considered more secure:
Make sure Enroll subject without requiring any Continue reading
NB500: SolarWinds and MacOS Vulernabilities Get Attention; Amazon Invests in Nuclear to Meet Power, Carbon Goals
This week’s Network Break discusses a CISA warning that a serious SolarWinds vulnerability is being exploited, Microsoft turns the tables by discovering a MacOS vulnerability, and Amazon invests in small modular nuclear reactors to meet growing power demands and reduce carbon output. T-Mobile releases a new device using the 5G Reduced Capacity spec, Palo Alto... Read more »Tech Bytes: From AWS Topography to On-Prem Flows, Cisco ThousandEyes Boosts Network Visibility (Sponsored)
The Tech Bytes podcast welcomes back sponsor Cisco ThousandEyes to talk about new features that improve visibility into both the public cloud and your on-prem network. We’ll get details on the new topographical mapping feature for AWS, as well as ThousandEyes’ new capability to consume flow records from on prem and correlate those records with... Read more »AI for Network Engineers: Multi-Class Classification
Introduction
This chapter explains the multi-class classification training process. It begins with an introduction to the MNIST dataset (Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology dataset). Next, it describes how the SoftMax activation function computes the probability of the image fed into the model during the forward pass and how the weight parameters are adjusted during the backward pass to improve training results. Additionally, the chapter discusses the data parallelization strategy from a network perspective.
MINST Dataset
We will use the MNIST dataset [1], which consists of handwritten digits, to demonstrate the training process. The MNIST dataset includes four files: (1) a training set with 60,000 gray-scale images (28x28 pixels) and their respective (2) labels, and a test set with 10,000 images (28x28 pixels) and their respective labels. Figure 3-1 illustrates the structure and dependencies between the test dataset and the labels.
The file train-images-idx3-ubyte contains metadata describing how the images are ordered, along with the image pixel order. The file train-labels-idx1-ubyte defines which label (the digits 0-9) corresponds to which image in the image file. Since we have ten possible outputs, we use ten output neurons.
Before the training process begins, the labels for each image-label pair are one-hot Continue reading
NOG.HR: A NOG Meeting Worth Attending
I never know what to expect when I’m invited to speak at a regional (or in-country) Network Operator Group (NOG) meeting. Sometimes, it turns out to be a large conference (PLNOG and ITNOG come to mind); other times, it’s just a few people gathered around free donuts and coffee1. Last week’s Croatian NOG (NOG.HR) meeting was in the Goldilocks zone between the extremes: plenty of interested networking engineers, but not large enough to be overpowering.
Also, it was such a nice experience ;)
The IPv6 Transition
I wrote an article in May 2022, asking “Are we there yet?” about the transition to IPv6. At the time I concluded the article on an optimistic note, observing that we may not be ending the transition just yet, but we are closing in. I thought at the time that we won’t reach the end of this transition to IPv6 with a bang, but with a whimper. A couple of years later, I’d like to revise these conclusions with some different thoughts about where we are heading and why.Global Protect VPN SAML SSO with Entra-ID
In this blog post, we will look at how to use Entra-ID SAML SSO with GlobalProtect VPN. This guide assumes you are already familiar with GlobalProtect VPN and have an existing VPN solution with other forms of authentication. If you are new to GlobalProtect VPN, feel free to check out my other blog post, which is linked below.
Palo Alto Global Protect VPN Configuration Example
In this blog post, we will cover how to configure Palo Alto Global Protect VPN. We’ll go through setting up the portal, gateway, authentication profile, IP pools, split-tunnel, security policy, NAT policy and other necessary components.
Suresh Vina
Adding GlobalProtect to the Admin Centre
- Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin centre and navigate to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > New application.
- Add the Palo Alto Networks - GlobalProtect application.
- Once added, select Palo Alto Networks - GlobalProtect > Single sign-on.
On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, click the pencil icon in the Basic SAML Configuration section to edit the settings.
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In the Basic SAML Configuration section, for the Entity ID and Reply URL, ensure that you include
:443 after the URL, otherwise, it won't work. I Continue readingHedge 247: SONiC and other NOSs
SONiC has been around for a while–is there a solid commercial play for this open-source operating system? If so, what is it? What is the future for open-source and other network operating systems? Mike Bushong joins Tom Ammon, Eyvonne Sharp, and Russ White to discuss SONiC and open source network operating systems.
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HN754: Secure AI by Design with Palo Alto Networks (Sponsored)
AI is finding its way into more and more consumer and business applications. In particular, the widespread use of Generative AI raises a serious question: how secure is it? In this sponsored Heavy Networking episode we discuss security risks of AI tools and ways to mitigate those risks. Our guest is guest Rich Campagna, Senior... Read more »TNO006: Network Operations is Where It’s At
Join Mike Bushong, an industry expert, and host Scott Robohn as they talk about why Network Operations is the next big thing and why you should start with the end in mind for NetOps. Their proposal is that NetOps shouldn’t just get a seat at the table; they should get 51% of the vote. They... Read more »Arista-20 Years of Growth and Innovation
Today marks the 20th anniversary of Arista!
Over that time, our company has grown from nothing to #1 in Data Center Ethernet, a highly profitable $100+ billion S&P 500 company doing $6+ billion in annual revenue.
Public Videos: PCI DSS for Networking Engineers
Michele Chubirka (currently at Google) kindly allowed me to make her PCI DSS for Networking Engineers webinar public (available without registration or login).
The webinar covers an older version of PCI DSS (version 3.0; the current version is 4.0.1), but as fundamentals never change, you might still find it useful.
Global Protect Internal Host Detection & Internal Gateways – Lessons Learnt
I already had Palo Alto GlobalProtect VPN configured with an external gateway and portal, allowing me to connect back to my home network when I'm outside. Even when I'm inside my internal network, I can still connect to the VPN. However, I wanted to use the Internal Host Detection feature of GlobalProtect VPN, so that if I'm on my internal network and try to connect, it won't connect to the external gateway. Throughout the configurations, I learned a few lessons. Let’s dive in.
If you're completely new to GlobalProtect VPN, please check out my introductory blog post linked below.
Palo Alto Global Protect VPN Configuration Example
In this blog post, we will cover how to configure Palo Alto Global Protect VPN. We’ll go through setting up the portal, gateway, authentication profile, IP pools, split-tunnel, security policy, NAT policy and other necessary components.
Suresh Vina
Please note that this setup was tested on PAN-OS 10.2.9-h1 and the GlobalProtect macOS client version 6.2.4.
What is Internal Host Detection?
If you're already in your office or internal network, there's no need to connect to the VPN, what’s the point, right? This is especially relevant if you're using an Continue reading