12 January 2024
David Bombal invited me for another annual chat last December, focusing on (what else) networking careers in 2024. The results were published a few days ago, and I was amazed at how good it turned out. I always love chatting with David; this time, his editing team did a masterful job.
15 December 2023
After a brief introduction of how the language models fit into the AI/ML landscape, Javier Antich explained the language model basics, including auto-regression, types of language models, the specifics of large language models, and potential use cases,
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8 December 2023
Did you know that netlab includes full-blown IP address management? You can define address pools (or use predefined ones) and get IPv4 and IPv6 prefixes from those pools assigned to links, interfaces, and loopbacks. You can also assign static prefixes to links, use static IP addresses, interface addresses as an offset within the link subnet, or use unnumbered interfaces.
For an overview of netlab IPAM, watch the netlab address management video (part of the Network Automation Tools webinar), for more details read the netlab addressing tutorial.
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24 November 2023
In September 2023, Javier Antich extended the AI/ML in Networking webinar with a new section describing large language models (LLMs), starting with how do the LLMs fit into the AI/ML landscape?
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17 November 2023
The previous BGP-related videos described how fat fingers and malicious actors cause Internet outages.
Today, we’ll focus on the impact of bugs in BGP implementations, from malformed AS paths to mishandled transitive attributes. The examples in the video are a few years old, but you can see similar things in the wild in 2023.
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10 November 2023
November is turning out to be the Month of BGP on my blog. Keeping in line with that theme, let’s watch Stuart Charlton explain the Calico plugin (which can use BGP to advertise the container networking prefixes to the outside world) in the Kubernetes Networking Deep Dive webinar.
3 November 2023
At least some people learn from others’ mistakes: using the concepts proven by some well-publicized BGP leaks, malicious actors quickly figured out how to hijack BGP prefixes for fun and profit.
Fortunately, those shenanigans wouldn’t spread as far today as they did in the past – according to RoVista, most of the largest networks block the prefixes Route Origin Validation (ROV) marks as invalid.
Notes:
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23 October 2023
I’ll be talking about Internet routing security at the Deep conference in a few days, and just in case you won’t be able to make it1 ;) here’s the first bit of my talk: a very brief history of BGP route leaks2.
Note: you’ll find more Network Security Fallacies videos in the How Networks Really Work webinar.
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6 October 2023
A few years ago, I was asked to deliver a What Is SDDC presentation that later became a webinar. I forgot about that webinar until I received feedback from one of the viewers a week ago:
If you like to learn from the teachers with the “straight to the point” approach and complement the theory with many “real-life” scenarios, then ipSpace.net is the right place for you.
I haven’t realized people still find that webinar useful, so let’s make it viewable without registration, starting with What Problem Are We Trying to Solve and What Is SDDC.
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16 August 2023
I’m publishing a link to a free ipSpace.net video several times each month, usually with a notice saying you need free subscription to watch the video. I had to put that limitation in place when I was hosting videos on AWS S3 – unlimited streaming could explode my AWS bill.
Recently I moved the video storage to Cloudflare R2. Cloudflare claims they will never charge egress fees, and as long as that’s true (and they don’t start chasing me for generating too much traffic) I see no reason to bother you with registration and login procedures – starting immediately, you can watch the free ipSpace.net videos without an ipSpace.net account.
9 June 2023
After discussing the backend and CPE architecture in a typical SD-WAN solution in the SD-WAN Overview webinar, Pradosh Mohapatra mentioned a few SD-WAN security aspects, focusing on typical attack vectors and the usual mitigations.
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2 June 2023
After introducing the routing protocols and explaining the basics of link-state routing it was time for implementation considerations including:
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26 May 2023
Sometime last autumn, I was asked to create a short “network security challenges” presentation. Eventually, I turned it into a webinar, resulting in almost four hours of content describing the interesting gotchas I encountered in the past (plus a few recent vulnerabilities like turning WiFi into a thick yellow cable).
Each webinar section started with a short “This is why we have to deal with these stupidities” introduction. You’ll find all of them collected in the Root Causes video starting the Network Security Fallacies part of the How Networks Really Work webinar.
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19 May 2023
Pete Lumbis concluded his ASICs for Networking Engineers presentation with a brief overview of types of switching ASICs and a wrap-up.
You can watch his entire 90-minute presentation (sliced into shorter videos) with Free ipSpace.net Subscription.
12 May 2023
Ready for more Kubernetes details? How about Container Networking Interface (CNI) described by Stuart Charlton as part of Kubernetes Networking Deep Dive webinar?
Notes:
5 May 2023
When 400GbE was still an emerging technology, Mark Nowell explained its basics in an update session of the Data Center Fabric Architectures webinar, starting with 400GbE optics.
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28 April 2023
Lukas Krattiger wrapped up his EVPN-versus-MLAG presentation (part of EVPN Deep Dive webinar) with an overview of the advantages and drawbacks of EVPN-based multihoming solutions:
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21 April 2023
Pradosh Mohapatra started the Typical SD-WAN Solution Architecture section of Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Overview webinar with the backend architecture.
Next step: CPE architecture, the topic of today’s video.
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14 April 2023
After introducing netlab in the Network Automation Tools webinar, I spent a few minutes describing the structure of the netlab lab topology file.
As always, use the video only as a starting point. For more details, read the netlab documentation (overview, reference guide).
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7 April 2023
The “beauty” (from an attacker perspective) of the original shared-media Ethernet was the ability to see all traffic sent to other hosts. While it’s trivial to steal someone else’s IPv4 address, the ability to see their traffic allowed you to hijack their TCP sessions without the victim being any wiser (apart from the obvious session timeout). Really smart attackers could go a step further, insert themselves into the forwarding path, and inject extra payload into unencrypted sessions.
A recently-discovered WiFi vulnerability brought us back to that wonderful world.
31 March 2023
It’s time for another Kubernetes video. After Stuart Charlton explained the Kubernetes SDN architecture, he described architectural approaches of Kubernetes SDN implementations, using Flannel as a sample implementation.
Parts of Kubernetes Networking Deep Dive webinar (including this video) are available with Free ipSpace.net Subscription.
24 March 2023
Did you know most chassis switches look like leaf-and-spine fabrics1 from the inside? If you didn’t, you might want to watch the short Chassis Architectures video by Pete Lumbis (author of ASICs for Networking Engineers part of the Data Center Fabric Architectures webinar).
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17 March 2023
After implementing MLAG functionality with EVPN and having a VXLAN-like fabric transport path between MLAG members, it becomes possible to get rid of the MLAG peer link.
Not surprisingly, most implementations of virtual MLAG peer link remain proprietary. Lukas Krattiger described the details of Cisco’s vPC Fabric Peering implementation in the EVPN Deep Dive webinar.
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10 March 2023
After describing the SD-WAN reference design, Pradosh Mohapatra focused on individual components of an SD-WAN solution, starting with the backend architecture.
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3 March 2023
After explaining how netlab fits into the virtual lab orchestration picture and what exactly it can do, let’s focus on what’s the easiest way to get started.
The next video in the Using netlab to Build Networking Labs series describes:
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24 February 2023
A few years ago, we were fortunate enough to have Pete Lumbis talking about ASICs for Networking Engineers as part of the Data Center Fabric Architectures webinar.
One of the topics he couldn’t possibly skip was the question of how many packet buffers one needs in a data center switch.
If you want even more details, watch the Networks, Buffers, and Drops webinar.
17 February 2023
The Routing Protocols Overview part of How Networks Really Work webinar introduced the concepts of distance-vector and link-state routing protocols. Next step: the basics of link-state routing protocols.
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10 February 2023
Stuart Charlton started the Kubernetes Networking Deep Dive webinar with an overview of basic concepts including the networking model and services. After covering the fundamentals, it was time for The Real Stuff: Container Networking Interface, starting with an overview of Kubernetes SDN architecture.
Parts of Kubernetes Networking Deep Dive webinar (including this video) are available with Free ipSpace.net Subscription.
3 February 2023
Matthias Luft concluded his part of Introduction to Cloud Computing webinar with a case study: how can you migrate an existing workload into a cloud environment?
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20 January 2023
David Bombal kindly invited me to have another chat talking about the future of networking in late 2022. The resulting (masterfully edited) video is already on YouTube. Hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed chatting with David.