TL&DR: FRRouting advertises the IP prefix on the lo loopback interface with zero cost.
Let’s start with the background story. When we added FRRouting containers support to netlab, someone decided to use lo0 as the loopback interface name. That device doesn’t exist in a typical Linux container, but it’s not hard to add it:
$ ip link add lo0 type dummy
$ ip link set dev lo0 up
TL&DR: FRRouting advertises the IP prefix on the lo loopback interface with zero cost.
Let’s start with the background story. When we added FRRouting containers support to netlab, someone decided to use lo0 as the loopback interface name. That device doesn’t exist in a typical Linux container, but it’s not hard to add it:
$ ip link add lo0 type dummy
$ ip link set dev lo0 up
How many cores is enough for server CPUs? All that we can get, and then some. …
Ampere Readies 256-Core CPU Beast, Awaits The AI Inference Wave was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.
Welcome to the 17th edition of Cloudflare’s DDoS threat report. This edition covers the DDoS threat landscape along with key findings as observed from the Cloudflare network during the first quarter of 2024.
But first, a quick recap. A DDoS attack, short for Distributed Denial of Service attack, is a type of cyber attack that aims to take down or disrupt Internet services such as websites or mobile apps and make them unavailable for users. DDoS attacks are usually done by flooding the victim's server with more traffic than it can handle.
To learn more about DDoS attacks and other types of attacks, visit our Learning Center.
Quick reminder that you can access previous editions of DDoS threat reports on the Cloudflare blog. They are also available on our interactive hub, Cloudflare Radar. On Radar, you can find global Internet traffic, attacks, and technology trends and insights, with drill-down and filtering capabilities, so you can zoom in on specific countries, industries, and networks. There’s also a free API allowing academics, data sleuths, and other web enthusiasts to investigate Internet trends across the globe.
To learn how we prepare this report, refer Continue reading
One of my friends is running a large IPv6 network and has already experienced a shortage of IPv6 neighbor cache on some of his switches. Digging deeper into the root causes, he discovered:
In my larger environments, I see significant neighbor table cache entries, especially on network segments with hosts that make many long-term connections. These hosts have 10 to 20 addresses that maintain state over days or weeks to accomplish their processes.
What’s going on? A perfect storm of numerous unrelated annoyances:
One of my friends is running a large IPv6 network and has already experienced a shortage of IPv6 neighbor cache on some of his switches. Digging deeper into the root causes, he discovered:
In my larger environments, I see significant neighbor table cache entries, especially on network segments with hosts that make many long-term connections. These hosts have 10 to 20 addresses that maintain state over days or weeks to accomplish their processes.
What’s going on? A perfect storm of numerous unrelated annoyances:
Today is the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the “Venado” supercomputer, which was hinted at back in April 2021 when Nvidia announced its plans for its first datacenter-class Arm server CPU and which was talked about in some detail – but not really enough to suit our taste for speeds and feeds – back in May 2022 by the folks at Los Alamos National Laboratory where Venado is situated. …
Los Alamos Pushes The Memory Wall With “Venado” Supercomputer was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.
I’ve recently been spinning up lots of Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) clusters (using Pulumi, of course) in order to test various Cilium configurations. Along the way, I’ve wanted to verify the association and configuration of Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) being used by the EKS cluster. In this post, I’ll share a couple of AWS CLI commands that will help you track the ENIs used by an EKS cluster.
When I first set out to find the easiest way to track the ENIs used by the nodes in an EKS cluster, I thought that AWS resource tags might be the key. I was right—but not in the way I expected. In the Pulumi program (written in Go) that I use to create EKS clusters, I made sure to tag all the resources.
For example, when defining the EKS cluster itself I assigned tags:
eksCluster, err := eks.NewCluster(ctx, "eks-cluster", &eks.ClusterArgs{
Name: pulumi.Sprintf("%s-test", regionNames[awsRegion]),
// Some code omitted here for brevity
Tags: pulumi.StringMap{
"Name": pulumi.Sprintf("%s-test", regionNames[awsRegion]),
"owner": pulumi.String(ownerTag),
Continue reading
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the decision to join a company is not just about making a career move. Instead, it's about finding a mission, a community, and a platform to make a meaningful impact. Cloudflare’s remarkable technology and incredibly driven teams are two reasons why I’m excited to join the team.
Joining Cloudflare as the Chief Partner Officer is my commitment to driving innovation and impact across the Internet through our channel partnerships. In each conversation throughout the interview process, I found myself getting more and more excited about the opportunity. Several former trusted colleagues who have recently joined Cloudflare repeatedly told me how amazing the people and company culture are. A positive culture driven by people that are passionate about their work is key. We work too hard not to have fun while doing it.
When it comes to partnerships, I see the immense value that partners can provide. My philosophy revolves around fostering collaborative, value-driven partnerships. It is about building ecosystems where we jointly navigate challenges, innovate together, and collectively thrive in a rapidly evolving global marketplace where the success of our channel partners directly influences our collective achievements. It also involves investing in their growth Continue reading
This Friday, Marlon Bailey and I will be teaching a new four-hour class on coding skills for network engineers over on Safari Books Online through Pearson. From the course description:
Network engineers are increasingly expected to know how to perform basic coding, like building scripts to gather information and build or maintain an automation system. In larger organizations with full-time coders, network engineers are expected to effectively work with coders, on their own turf, to build and maintain network automation systems. All of these tasks require a basic knowledge of the structure and terminology of programming. There are a lot of courses that show you how to build your first program, or how to perform basic tasks using common programming languages—this course is different. This course will help you build a “mental map” of the software development space, gathering ideas and patterns learned across years into a simple-to-understand format. In this course you will learn data structures, program flow control, and—most importantly—how to structure software for efficiency and maintainability over the long haul.
For anyone who doesn’t know Marlon, you can find his LinkedIn profile here.
(UPDATED on April 15, 2024, with information regarding the Palestinian territories.)
As news came on Saturday, April 13, 2024, that Iran was launching a coordinated retaliatory attack on Israel, we took a closer look at the potential impact on Internet traffic and attacks. So far, we have seen some traffic shifts in both Israel and Iran, but we haven’t seen a coordinated large cyberattack on Israeli domains protected by Cloudflare.
First, let’s discuss general Internet traffic patterns. Following reports of attacks with drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, confirmed by Israeli and US authorities, Internet traffic in Israel surged after 02:00 local time on Saturday, April 13 (23:00 UTC on April 12), peaking at 75% higher than in the previous week around 02:30 (23:30 UTC) as people sought news updates. This traffic spike was predominantly driven by mobile device usage, accounting for 62% of all traffic from Israel at that time. Traffic remained higher than usual during Sunday.
Around that time, at 02:00 local time (23:00 UTC), the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) posted on X that sirens were sounding across Israel because of an imminent attack from Iran.
🚨Sirens sounding across Israel🚨 pic.twitter.com/BuDasagr10
— Israel Defense Forces Continue reading
I'm sure many of you can relate to the familiar headache that comes with setting up Network Labs. Suppose you just want to test some BGP functionalities, perhaps exploring how to use Route Map with BGP route filtering. Normally, you'd start by setting up a lab environment. This involves selecting a platform like EVE-NG or Cisco CML, adding a bunch of routers, and connecting everything with virtual cables.
Once your setup is physically ready, the real "fun" begins. You start configuring each router, setting interface IPs, adding descriptions, and configuring BGP attributes like neighbours and network statements. If this sounds tedious, that's because it is! I've configured interfaces countless times myself, and it never gets any less painful. Ever typed the wrong IP and then spent hours troubleshooting why you can't ping your peer? If you're nodding in agreement, you're definitely not alone. I know how to configure an interface already, I just don't want to do it for the 1000th time this year.
And just when you think about doing some automation or integrating with 3rd party tools (NMS, NCM etc), you're faced with another set of challenges. Setting up local user accounts, configuring management IPs, creating SSH keys—it Continue reading