Single RX queue kernel bypass in Netmap for high packet rate networking

In a previous post we discussed the performance limitations of the Linux kernel network stack. We detailed the available kernel bypass techniques allowing user space programs to receive packets with high throughput. Unfortunately, none of the discussed open source solutions supported our needs. To improve the situation we decided to contribute to the Netmap project. In this blog post we'll describe our proposed changes.

network card

CC BY-SA 2.0 image by Binary Koala

Our needs

At CloudFlare we are constantly dealing with large packet floods. Our network constantly receives a large volume of packets, often coming from many, simultaneous attacks. In fact, it is entirely possible that the server which just served you this blog post is dealing with a many-million packets per second flood right now.

Since the Linux Kernel can't really handle a large volume of packets, we need to work around it. During packet floods we offload selected network flows (belonging to a flood) to a user space application. This application filters the packets at very high speed. Most of the packets are dropped, as they belong to a flood. The small number of "valid" packets are injected back to the kernel and handled in the same way Continue reading

Apple removes apps from store that could spy on your data traffic

Apple on Thursday removed several apps from its store that it said could pose a security risk by exposing a person's Web traffic to untrusted sources.The company recommended deleting the apps but did not name them, which may make it hard for people to know which apps put their data at risk.The apps in question installed their own digital certificates on a person's Apple mobile device. It would enable the apps to terminate an encrypted connection between a device and a service and view the traffic, which is a potential security risk.Most websites and many apps use SSL/TLS (Secure Socket Layer/Transport Security Layer), a protocol that encrypts data traffic exchanged with a user. SSL/TLS is a cornerstone of Web security, ensuring data traffic that is intercepted is unreadable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Alibaba sets up second data center in the US in $1B cloud expansion

Continuing the expansion of its AliCloud cloud computing business, Alibaba Group is setting up a second data center in Silicon Valley.The Chinese company said customers could apply from Monday for  services from the data center, which will span over 10 cloud services including Elastic Compute Service, offering scalable computing services, an Analytic Database Service that provides real-time, high-concurrency online analytical processing, and a Cloud Monitor System using an open platform for the real-time monitoring of sites and servers.Alibaba did not respond to a request for more information on the new data center.The company said earlier this year that it was investing US$1 billion in its cloud computing business.  It launched its first data center in Silicon Valley in March, confirming its ambitions to enter the U.S. market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Risky Business #386 — Katie Moussouris on the (groan) disclosure debate

On this week's show we're checking in with Katie Moussouris of HackerOne. She's an ex Microsoftie who's spent something like a decade working on vulnerability disclosure policies. She even helped get a vuln disclosure ISO standard ratified!

And she'll be joining us this week to discuss disclosure politics, I guess you'd call it... for those of us who've been around infosec for a while, most of us would rather stick our face in a blender than talk about it, but Katie will be along to point out why people should fight their "disclosure debate fatigue" and get involved.

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Many vulnerabilities in older Huawei 3G routers won’t get patched

Huawei doesn't plan to patch more than a dozen models of 3G routers that have severe software vulnerabilities.The flaws could allow an attacker to change DNS (Domain Name System) settings, upload new firmware without logging into the device and conduct a denial-of-service attack.The models of affected routers, distributed by ISPs in 21 countries, are now considered out of Huawei's support cycle, said Pierre Kim, a security researcher who found the issues and listed the models on his blog.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Brocade BNA API

Brocade Network Advisor (BNA) has a REST API for accessing Fibre Channel-related data. The documentation includes a sample Python script showing how to connect to the API to retrieve Fabric info. The script given only works with Python 3.x. It’s also a pain to copy out of the documentation as you end up with a few extra characters in there. Here’s a version that will work with Python 2.7. I’ve also made a few other modifications – in this one, you can set the BNA IP, Username & Password at the top of the script.  I’ve also made it PEP8-compliant.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import httplib
import json
import sys

BNAServer = "10.200.5.181"
BNAUsername = "Administrator"
BNAPassword = "password"

# Create HTTPConnection object and connect to the server.
connection = httplib.HTTPConnection(BNAServer)

###########################
# Log in to Network Advisor
###########################

# Send login request
connection.request(
    'POST',
    '/rest/login',
    headers={
        "WSUsername": BNAUsername,
        "WSPassword": BNAPassword,
        "Accept": "application/vnd.brocade.networkadvisor+json;version=v1"}
    )

print()
print("Sending login request to Network Advisor...")

# Get the response
response = connection.getresponse()
# Display the response status print()
print ("Status= ", response.status)
# If successful (status = 200), display the returned session token
if response.status  Continue reading

Intelligent Bandwidth Decisions at the WAN Edge

Business Critical Applications and Intelligent Decision Making at the WAN Edge….. these are the things I’ve been focusing on in the past few blogs.  To me, PfRv3 and DMVPN are the dynamic duo of Cisco’s IWAN that help you learn about and avoid impairments (delay, loss, jitter) along the path that business critical traffic takes.

Let’s take this even further though.  How else can IWAN’s Intelligent Path Control help us apply the mentality of the  7Ps (“Prior proper preparation prevents piss poor performance”)  to our network and to business critical traffic?

Knowledge… information gathering… awareness. These are the first steps.  Once you have the knowledge you can make intelligent decisions based on that knowledge at the WAN edge.

What knowledge?  :)  How about the bandwidth of your WAN links?  Wouldn’t it be nice to have facts, such as what their current bandwidth utilization is, be a  part of the Intelligent decision making at the WAN edge?

shm_exits

 

 

 

 

We can do that for you now.  We can use what your current egress utilization is on your WAN links in the intelligent decision making process that PfRv3 does for you at Continue reading

MikroTik CCR1072-1G-8S+ Review – Part 3 – 80 Gbps Throughput testing

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[metaslider id=249]

The 80 Gbps barrier has finally been broken (and yes we are rounding up) !!!!

Well at least it has been reached by someone other than MikroTik. It’s taken us quite a while to get all the right pieces to push 80 Gbps of traffic through the CC1072 but with the latest round of servers that just got delivered to our lab, we were able to go beyond our previous high water mark of 54 Gbps all the way to just under 80 Gbps. There have been a number of questions about this particular router and what the performance will look like in the real world. While this is still a lab test, we are using non-MikroTik equipment and iperf which is considered an extremely accurate performance measuring tool for TCP and UDP.

Video of the CCR1072-1G-8S+ in action  (Turn up your volume to hear the roar of the ESXi servers as they approach 80 Gbps)

How we did it – The Hardware 

CCR1072-1G-8S+ – Obviously you can’t have a test of the CCR1072 without one to test on. Our CCR1072-1G-8S+ is a pre-production model so there are some minor differences between it and the Continue reading

MikroTik CCR1072-1G-8S+ Review – Part 3 – 80 Gbps Throughput testing

[adrotate banner=”5″]

 

[metaslider id=249]

The 80 Gbps barrier has finally been broken (and yes we are rounding up) !!!!

Well at least it has been reached by someone other than MikroTik. It’s taken us quite a while to get all the right pieces to push 80 Gbps of traffic through the CC1072 but with the latest round of servers that just got delivered to our lab, we were able to go beyond our previous high water mark of 54 Gbps all the way to just under 80 Gbps. There have been a number of questions about this particular router and what the performance will look like in the real world. While this is still a lab test, we are using non-MikroTik equipment and iperf which is considered an extremely accurate performance measuring tool for TCP and UDP.

Video of the CCR1072-1G-8S+ in action  (Turn up your volume to hear the roar of the ESXi servers as they approach 80 Gbps)

How we did it – The Hardware 

CCR1072-1G-8S+ – Obviously you can’t have a test of the CCR1072 without one to test on. Our CCR1072-1G-8S+ is a pre-production model so there are some minor differences between it and the Continue reading

Dispelling the myths of hybrid hosting

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

When the Amazon Web Services platform failed recently some of the internet’s biggest sites -- including Netflix and Tinder – suffered extended outages. The culprit? AWS's NoSQL database DynamoDB, where increased error rates led to increased errors and latency in more than 20 AWS services.

These and other sites wouldn’t have had a problem if they used hybrid hosting, the best way to architect modern apps. Hybrid hosting lets businesses set up their databases on dedicated servers, put their front-end Web apps in the cloud, then tie everything together with a single click.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: ‘Culture of denial’: Nuclear industry’s cybersecurity shortcomings revealed in new report

Many nuclear power facilities aren't air-gapped from the Internet, and many "critical infrastructure components" can be identified via search engines. These are just two of the graphic warnings made in a recent report on the nuclear power industry by think tank Chatham House.The international policy institute has just released a report (PDF) on cybersecurity at civil nuclear facilities worldwide, including those in the U.S. The report is scathing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Webinar Q&A: Docker Overview

Thanks everyone who joined us during our Docker Overview webinar. During this webinar, we gave a high level introduction to Docker, and let the audience see the platform in action during a live demo. The recording of the webinar is available … Continued

IP was Middle School, Named Data Networking is College

Named Data Networking Project Van Jacobson: "In vocabulary terms, IP is like a good middle school education. There’s a lot of things you can say and communicate in society but it’s not so great for writing a poetry volume or a thesis... The real goal of NDN was to get us into college." Much of the Named Data Networking (NDN) project codebase is still at the Version zero-dot-something level. But things are nevertheless starting to get real for this content-centric architecture designed to blast past today’s host-based and point-to-point Internet scheme to one more suited for accessing applications across hugely scalable networks that are mobile and extend to all sorts of sensor-equipped things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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