Networks

working remotely on Windows via Remote Desktop if you’re hanging off GRPS or 3G connectivity somewhere in the mountains (for example) isn’t optimal. as I had to access some such servers remotely. you can find cygwin useful (there’s also VanDyke V-Shell, a bit pricey and for non-commercial use). cygwin package installs UNIX environment, and that - yes - may include OpenSSH plus some tools (like scp for example) you just need to download, and then run installation, selecting cygrunsrv and openssh. if you’re done - you just need to bootstrap SSH server and then start service responsible for SSH. ...

traditionally for last couple of years engineering team at Cisco Poland is taking care of securing infrastructure for Wielkia Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy. this year i decided to launch experimental support for IPv6 - while we were not allowed to move all infrastructure to IPv6, it should be possible next year. everyone that has IPv6 access can point browser to ipv6.wosp.org.pl. everything works based on reverse-proxy provided by Apache, FreeBSD and Cisco MCS server :) ...

long, long time ago, playing with BGP was reserved for secret group of people, that somewhat alike Lems Trurl and Klapaucjusz were laughing from mere mortals but didn’t share the knowledge. then, a lot of things changed, trainings, certifications appeared, and then bootcamps and finally massive, open-for-all intro courses. and now, BGP is everywhere and is configured by anyone - you’ll find typical home wives running it as well, as without it they couldn’t upload new contact via bluetooth it seems. ...

i was stubborn - and while from the very first moment we’ve had a lot of challenges with the hotel infrastructure, i was able to run xTR routers during last PLNOG for LISP. no, it’s not about programming Cisco routers with LISP, but about new concept of Location/ID Split, that is new concept enabling you to treat traffic engineering in internet differently. in short - we still serve traffic like we always did (backward compatibility), but by assigning users and companies IPv4 and IPv6 addressing from special pools, we can treat this traffic in a different manner. LISP is de facto overlay network concept. this itself is nothing revolutionary, but on the other hand - it’s first such network that got wide adoption in world-wide internet. why would you like to use LISP? apart from ability to conserve IP addresses, LISP gives you ability to do traffic engineering without use of BGP or involving third parties. and in effect, adopting it may mean less FIB space needed on core internet routers. ...

if you’re peering with somebody else using one of available IXPs, prediction of traffic flow changes and optimization of paid services is crucial for proper traffic engineering. one of the more popular and easier tools, that is able to visualize traffic exchanged between ASes is AS-Stats. to properly doing its work, AS-Stats needs proper link definition in knownlinks file. NetFlow probes exported to collector will contain only the id and AS-Stats needs to match it. example file itself for my installation is simple: ...

it seems that more and more things are landing in our homes. couple of people that created nTop project with cooperation with Intel, built a device driver for Linux that can forward traffic using Intel X520 directly with 32 thousands of rules applied. 32 thousands is quite a number to serve real-life aggregation or core router, but at the same time it’s more than needed to serve as home firewall. similar things were done in the past in NVidia nForce chipset. ...

I wrote about such ideas over two years ago. it seems the concept of offloading packet forwarding from CPU to GPU may have some merits, and if you’re interested in that - take a look at packetshader. still however, hardware config needed to achieve that kind of performance feat is quite expensive. it demonstrates however that GPU, next to FPGA experiments, can also be viable way of forwarding in high-performance packet forwarding/routing based on PCs. ...

everybody talks about IPv6 and still too few of us take it seriously. on polish mailing list dedicated to implementing IPv6 we get steady series of IPv6 prefix announcements, but real services available over this protocol is low. as a proof of concept for upcoming PLNOG, I just launched full network stack (Cisco 7200VXR with NPE-G1, ASA 5500-X, Catalyst 3750) and service (FreeBSD) for dual stack operation. IPv6 should be preferred, and while there’s still some things to tune down (like for example, DNS resolver in Windows XP), it should work. ...

…doesn’t have to be totally banal. it’s much more performant (300kpps, around the NPE300 performance from 7200!), so i upgraded my home 1803w to 1941w. as there are no readily available examples for complete config of the router (wired + WLAN), I decided to take the case in my hands and produce some examples. you may find them here.

plnog, plnog and… gone. it looks like we have actually grown into the most serious and largest independent conference dedicated to people working on service provider networks in Poland - though I’m not going to fight anyone on the number of participants, this additional 100 people on each subsequent edition of PLNOG (we counted 395 participants this time!) speaks for itself. to the point that I’ve met many people for the first time in my life :) ...