Packet Pushers Podcast

Brocade Virtual Symposium – Soft Core and Hard Edges (Sponsored)

packetpushers@gmail.com — Tue, 29 May 2012 21:22:13 +0000

The Brocade Virtual Symposium gave me a surprise when I discovered that Brocade has a software switching solution for VMware environments. It's different approach to Cisco and suitable for most companies. Tune in for more details on Automatic Migration of Port Profiles (AMPP). Press play to be enlightened:

Network Operations – Network Engineer – Amazon

packetpushers@gmail.com — Tue, 29 May 2012 15:38:34 +0000

Location: Dublin, Ireland or Seattle, Washington, USA Amazon.com is looking for best-in-class Network Support Engineers and Senior Network Support Engineers based in Dublin, Ireland or Seattle, WA to help manage and operate one of the world’s largest and complex networks. With Amazon Web Services (http://aws.amazon.com), our goal is to become “The Infrastructure Platform” to the [...]

Your Firewall Sandwich Gives Me Indigestion

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 28 May 2012 20:26:57 +0000

The other day a discussion came up on a security mailing list regarding the proper method for implementing “defense in depth.” I was horrified to hear that some thought having two layers of firewalls from different vendors achieves this goal, and I responded with the following statement, “Ah, the firewall sandwich: it gives me indigestion.” [...]

Network Ninja Routing Terminology: How to Sound Like You Know What You’re Talking About

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 28 May 2012 15:39:34 +0000

Once upon a time, my local security officer was reviewing a proposed firewall rule of mine that included 172.16.9.0/24. His suggestion – something along the lines of “I’d really rather not open this up to an entire Class C network” – irritated me to no end, particularly because my proposed rule didn’t mention anything about [...]

So You Want to Participate in the IETF…

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 25 May 2012 10:25:17 +0000

If you’re at the point in your career where you want to “join” the IETF, maybe you need more work to do. (Dear Abbey: Why are my daughters so sarcastic?) But if you really want to help… The first point is that you don’t need to attend any meetings to participate in the IETF. You [...]

Network Complexity: Deep Dive Into the Case of the Femtocell

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:26:16 +0000

I suppose I should have expected it, but my tongue in cheek post on my failure to get a Microcell running in my house has generated a number of comments, mostly ideas on troubleshooting. So, if you really want to know… Several points to note up front. First, this is going to be a bit [...]

NetPrivateer – Senior Network Engineer

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 25 May 2012 01:59:51 +0000

http://netprivateer.com/srneteng.html Location: Douglassville, PA, USA About the Job: This position is for an experienced Network Engineer with Cisco & security expertise responsible for planning, implementation, enhancement, maintenance or operational support of simple and advanced complex data networks as well as the security aspects of such networks. Candidate must be able to hit the ground running [...]

The Packet Pushers at Cisco Live US San Diego 2012

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 25 May 2012 01:27:13 +0000

Greg Ferro & Ethan Banks will be attending Cisco Live US in San Diego. We’ve bought our plane tickets. We’re on our way. We’ll be covering the show, recording podcasts, and we’re planning on some tweet-ups. We’ll publish more information as we come up with a schedule. Hope to see you there! LINKS Cisco Live [...]

Graphing Nexus CPU and Memory: Here’s the OIDs

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:30:25 +0000

I remember when I first wanted to graph this stuff on Nexus…I noticed the Cisco IOS out-of-the-box graph templates wouldn’t work. I asked around a little and mostly got “You can’t do it,” as the answer. I haven’t dug into it for a long time since I haven’t had to support Nexus much, but today, [...]

Show 104 – Is SDN a TRILL Killer?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:00:16 +0000

Greg Ferro & Ethan Banks conclude their chat begun in Show 103 – Choking on Cookies, but take the conversation in a different direction. What We Discuss TRILL & SPB – are they competing or complimentary? Or aimed at different markets? If SDN really gets a strong foothold in the marketplace because of excellent applications, [...]

Unicorn Crossing – Plugging the Packet Pushers

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 23 May 2012 10:42:20 +0000

A quick shout out to Brent Salisbury Brent Salisbury CCIE#11972, Network Architect at University of Kentucky who sent in a presentation that he gave to Dell Network Advisory team which contained this brilliant slide that also included a plug for the Packet Pushers :0 I’m still laughing – Unicorn Crossing. “Warning – Contains Optimism” Brent, [...]

Senior Network Engineer/Architect: CCIE – Service Provider + Core Network Services

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 21 May 2012 23:26:40 +0000

http://www.relationalit.com/find-work/search-it-jobs/ Location Manchester, New Hampshire, USA – some relocation available. Live & work in an income tax-free, safe & scenic location – big city services without the big metro hassle! Job Summary Provides technical expertise and operations support, strategic and tactical planning, and recommendations to management for new technologies and network applications in response to [...]

A New Blog Category: Jobs

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 21 May 2012 23:06:43 +0000

Here at Packet Pushers, we’ve gotten requests from recruiters as well as readers and listeners to offer a job listing service. So, we’re giving it a try. The idea is this: recruiters trying to find technical talent to fill open network engineering positions can, for a fee, have their opportunity listed here. The thousands of [...]

Am I Just a Digital Sharecropper?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:27:59 +0000

When Ethan Banks recently announced he was ditching Facebook along with some other unnecessary social media accounts, I was a little concerned. He said it was because he was trying to digitally downsize and was uneasy about how his data was being mined. But I privately worried that he was either preparing to go Luddite [...]

HP IMC: Email Alerting

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sun, 20 May 2012 23:00:03 +0000

HP’s Intelligent Management Center supports the use of email or SMS for alarm notification. It’s trivial to add a rule to get it to send you an email when a device goes down. But what about if you also want an email when the device comes back online? There’s no direct way of saying “send [...]

Show 103 – Choking on Cookies

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sun, 20 May 2012 21:04:33 +0000

Podcast hosts Ethan Banks & Greg Ferro have a good old-fashioned chinwag about things that are on their minds in this, the first of a two-part podcast. Part two should be published later during the week of 20-May-2012 as Show 104. Stay tuned! What We Discuss Long-term goals for the Packet Pushers Podcast. How you can [...]

Another Teaser From the Packet Pushers

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:00:05 +0000

We hinted at something coming from the Packet Pushers in an earlier post. Well, here’s another hint… Wookieepedia shares with us the following: The prophecy of the Chosen One was an ancient Jedi legend that foretold the coming of a being who would restore balance to the Force. The idea of balance of the Force, a central tenet of the Jedi [...]

Interop 2012 Round-Up

packetpushers@gmail.com — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:15:05 +0000

I usually attend one or two trade shows per year, with Cisco Networkers/Live being the primary focus. That mostly has to do with being a largely Cisco shop, and my own predilections as much as with my general lack of time and a desire to maximize what I do have. Other shows and events I [...]

Network Complexity Bites Back

packetpushers@gmail.com — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:48:25 +0000

Let me tell you a story. The cell phone service at my house stinks. On a good day, if I walk out on the porch and lean against the rail, I can get one bar of signal. If it’s raining and the middle of the summer, where the trees have a good covering of leaves, [...]

Understanding Brocade’s ISLs and ECMP Just a Wee Bit More

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 11 May 2012 03:28:24 +0000

In the Brocade Virtual Symposium hosted by Packet Pushers and Tech Field Day, Part 3: Multi-Path vs. Multi-Chassis shows us an interesting case of using ECMP and VCS with different size ISL links. Ivan Pepelnjak asks a question. If Brocade is using ECMP as dictated by TRILL, will there be underutilised bandwidth as each of the links have [...]

Show 102 – A Layer of Indirection: Is MPLS Tunneling?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 11 May 2012 02:00:09 +0000

Greg Ferro and Ethan Banks dive into a deep, dark hole of nerdery with Ivan Pepelnjak, Marko Milivojevic, and Petr Lapukov to see if we can decide whether or not MPLS is tunneling. We plumb the depths of packet and frame formatting, compare and contrast various technologies, toss different scenarios around, contradict one another, and throw [...]

Does TRILL Stand a Chance at Wide Adoption?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Thu, 10 May 2012 07:00:27 +0000

TRILL (TRansparent Interconnect of Lots of Links) is considered by some to be the heir-apparent to spanning-tree’s throne. After all, Radia Perlman was the force behind STP, and her name heads the list of authors for RFC 6325, the base TRILL protocol specification. For that reason alone, it seems a natural progression to move from [...]

POLL: CCIE Data Center – Who’s In?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 09 May 2012 07:00:37 +0000

I have one primary question for the Packet Pusher’s community regarding the newly announced CCIE Data Center track: Who’s in? The beta CCIE Data Center written tests are available (mine is scheduled for a week from now), schedule at a PearsonVUE near you (they’ve gotten a bit better in Portland, btw). Non-beta written tests and [...]

RFC 1998 Implementation Example: BGP Community Attribute in Multi-Home Routing

packetpushers@gmail.com — Tue, 08 May 2012 07:00:53 +0000

Couple of days ago, I had really interesting discussion about using BGP communities to influent inbound traffic by modifying ISP’s LOCAL_PREF on advertised prefixes in multi homed environments. There are many Internet Service Providers that support this, including, for example, Level3 (as visible on this link). Taking in consideration that BGP communities are basically prefix [...]

Pwn Your Own Network

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:36:43 +0000

I’ll admit it. Part of the reason I’m in IT is for the toys. Before Daniel Craig (yum) took over, I think the only interesting part of a James Bond movie was the compulsory scene in which Q demonstrated new gadgets to 007. Seems like once a year I have to clear out my drawers [...]

When Is a Firewall Like a Speed Bump?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sun, 06 May 2012 20:58:14 +0000

The other day the Director of Engineering at my new job asked me why we install firewalls. He admitted that he already had an answer, but that he wanted me to document it for all the network engineers who frequently asked him this question. The problem is that I’ve been asking myself the same thing [...]

BGP Origin Authentication: What Are We Trying to Prove?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:12:25 +0000

There was a long thread on NANOG just a couple of days ago about BGP security –see this message and this message, discussing this article in Slashdot about using DNS to solve the problem of BGP security on the ‘net. Can DNS solve this problem? Well, that’s a pickle of a question. Why? Because it [...]

Coming Soon From the Packet Pushers

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:00:55 +0000

We have an announcement to make…but not yet. Here’s a couple of clues!

Show 101 – Brocade Virtual Symposium Part 1 – Sponsored

packetpushers@gmail.com — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:43:38 +0000

Introducing the Brocade Virtual Symposium. In a special video session, we brought Chip Copper from Brocade into a room to talk about four key areas of Brocade’s Ethernet Fabric. The first episode is this weeks Packet Pushers Podcast. The session is discussing just “What is an Ethernet Fabric” and digging into how Brocade implements their [...]

Infineta and Parallelization, Part 1

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:03:26 +0000

1. Opinions are like… In the past 5 years I’ve participated in three proper evaluations of WAN acceleration products. Twice with Cisco’s products (an older and then a newer product) and once with Riverbed. On the surface, the viability of these products seems obvious. Locality of Reference (both in transmission and in storage) is a [...]

Show 100 – Live at Network Field Day Three – Video

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:00:39 +0000

Network Field Day Three meant that a lot of regular guests on Packet Pushers were in the same room at the same time. And that room was full of cameras, microphones and a crew to run it!! So we recorded a Packet Pushers Live - the first ever show in video as Show 100. That's right - 100 shows! Two years since we started, about 6000 downloads per show and more than 50000 downloads a month.

HP IMC: Backup Cisco ASAs via SSH

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:00:39 +0000

Recently, I wrote a review of HP’s Intelligent Management Center. One of the things I mentioned having problems with was backing up some Cisco devices via SSH. Out of the box, IMC doesn’t like backing up IOS-based devices if you use SSH (telnet is fine), nor will it backup the configuration of a Cisco ASA.

Slow Down, It’s in the Details: A Story of BGP Peering Trauma

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 22:12:07 +0000

My new job sucked a little time away from me at the start, and now I am getting back on board with some nice new blog posts. Much like any exam and from what I hear, the CCIE is all about what’s in the details. Here’s a real-world example. After a few short discussions and [...]

Fatalism Is Sexy: Security’s New Mindset of the Inevitable Hack

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:46:45 +0000

In my industry reading this week, I came across the following notion a few times: getting hacked is inevitable – therefore, work on mitigating & containing the damage as much you work on border control. I don’t suppose anyone in the security business is getting ready to chuck their firewalls and IPS units out the [...]

Stereotypes in the #PacketPushers IRC Channel

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 07:00:38 +0000

A little light-hearted post for your Friday, this one taking a stab at stereotyping the good people in the #packetpushers IRC channel on FreeNode. And if you’re regularly in the channel and are wondering, no, this isn’t about you. Lurker – they say nothing. They watch all. I assume these guys to be the thought [...]

Show 99 – I Always Use a VPN – Thomas D’Otreppe – Aircrack-NG – OpenWIPS-NG

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:52:06 +0000

This week we are talking to Thomas d’Otreppe, author of Aircrack-NG and OpenWIPS-NG about his Open Source project and what they do ? AirCrack-NG Aircrack “Aircrack-ng is an 802.11 WEP and WPA-PSK keys cracking program that can recover keys once enough data packets have been captured. It implements the standard FMS attack along with some [...]

“Hello, World” From a New Packet Pushers Blogger

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 07:00:43 +0000

As this is my first post on Packet Pushers I thought it would be polite to start with an Ahoy hoy! I’m exited about sharing some of my networking challenges with you all, and hopefully giving some insight into how I think the world of data networks will (or should!) evolve. My day job is [...]

Brand Inertia: Is Cisco Your Most Trusted IT Partner?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:44:14 +0000

Jim Duffy wrote an article covering the 16th annual Cisco Partner Summit in San Diego, which you can read here. Jim reports that John Chambers asked the following poignant question, which Jim fittingly chose to close his article with: How do we become the most trusted IT partner our customers have? That’s a very telling [...]

RFC Prophecies

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 21:04:59 +0000

The other day a few of us at work were looking through the April Fool’s RFCs. If you haven’t seen them, they’re only for the most dedicated nerds. Almost every year, on April 1st, the IETF publishes facetious RFCs. It’s a tradition that started in 1973 with the Arpawocky RFC, which was a parody of [...]

Certified Ethical Hacker V7: Certification Review

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:10:52 +0000

Overview Like a lot of folks who run campus and enterprise networks, most of my network engineering roles have had a network security component. Once upon a time, I was a CCSP, and I even taught a few Cisco security classes back in the day. I keep up with firewalls, VPN, IDS/IPS, and related technologies, as [...]

An Alternate Route to a Networking Career

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 03:25:03 +0000

Can I Ask You a Question? As the social networking revolution enables increasing interaction between networkers and networking-wannabes the world ’round through vehicles like the Packet Pushers website, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even that old horse, IRC, one question seems to be asked frequently of the more experienced networking professionals: How do I get started with [...]

Survey – Local Networking User Groups: Your Input Requested

packetpushers@gmail.com — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:32:35 +0000

Are you part of a networking user group in your area? Would you care to share that info with others? I’m compiling a list to share with the readership, so I’d love to hear from you via e-mail to ethan.banks@packetpushers.net or the comments section below. All corners of the globe are encouraged to respond, and vendor-specific [...]

Thin Slicing a Black Swan: The Search for the Unknown Unknowns

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:57:30 +0000

Over the last two weeks I’ve had an ongoing conversation with Derick Winkworth regarding the colossal (and largely unmanageable) amount of data gathered in information security. I even brazenly cornered Josh Corman, one of the founders of the Rugged Software movement, at AppsecDC to discuss my thoughts. But let me quote a famous American poet, [...]

Arista Networks Knows Who They Are – Do You?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 22:08:29 +0000

I’ve been privileged to hear in person Arista Networks present their products to a couple of Tech Field Day delegations of which I’ve been a part, and it’s clear that they know who they are and the market space their product fits into. Arista makes Ethernet switches for data centers. Period. Now, a lot of [...]

Show 98 – The Future of TRILL and Spanning Tree – Part 2

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:10:36 +0000

This is the second part of the TRILL and Spanning Tree discussion. TRILL has been on the radar for about three years and while we are seeing some shipping hardware and deployments, it's still not clear what the current status of TRILL is. This week, Jon Hudson IETF Member for TRILL and Brocade engineer is joined with Andy Shalomon from Cisco, who is conducting testing and deployment on Cisco's FabricPath for a discussion about where TRILL is today.

The Sad State of Data Center Networking

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 01:44:25 +0000

Something about next-generation Data Center networking has been bothering me lately. For a while now, there has been this nagging sensation somewhere in the back of my mind telling me that its just not adding up. While I was at Network Field Day 3, I was able to connect some of the dots and form [...]

Show 97 – The Future of TRILL and Spanning Tree – Part 1

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:04:38 +0000

TRILL has been on the radar for about three years and while we are seeing some shipping hardware and deployments, it's still not clear what the current status of TRILL is. This week, Jon Hudson IETF Member for TRILL and Brocade engineer is joined with Andy Shalomon from Cisco, who is conducting testing and deployment on Cisco's FabricPath for a discussion about where TRILL is today.

Dropping Down a Gear

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 19:40:54 +0000

As I have written previously, I have started work after many months of long service leave, and evaluating where I am going with my career. I am about a month into a six month contract working at a non-profit with three or four hundred employees, focusing on social services. The organization previously outsourced all of [...]

Are You a Change Enabler or Are You Allergic to Change?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:11:35 +0000

I’m a private contractor, and I work as a consultant in various enterprises for short to mid-term contracts. They usually last for a 6 to 18 month period, and are usually to realize the conception, design, and installation of new technology or integration of different networks (i.e. the merger of 2 companies). This also means [...]

Show 96 – Hack the Hackers: Fyodor on Nmap & The Security Industry

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:51:21 +0000

Michele Chubirka (our very own Mrs. Y), Greg Ferro, and Ethan Banks gather *in person* with very special guest Gordon “Fyodor” Lyon. Fyodor is the author of Nmap, for many years the tool of choice to perform network scanning. The four of us chat about Nmap, being a security practitioner, and goings-on in the security business. [...]

Mrs. Y’s Tech Field Day Diary: Part One

packetpushers@gmail.com — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:31:50 +0000

3/27/12 I thought I was so prepared. I over-packed in preparation for the changeable Bay Area weather, allowed a 2½ hour cushion for the airport shuttle to get me to Dulles Airport, even had a large cache of gluten-free energy bars in preparation for the lack of food options awaiting me at the airport and [...]

You Can’t Build a System in a Silo: Let’s Reorganize IT

packetpushers@gmail.com — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:03:58 +0000

An idea I’ve come to believe in strongly over the last few years is that IT needs to align their staff around business function, and not just technology. Silos are killing us. By “silo”, I mean that IT practitioners are almost always grouped strictly according to technical competency. Teams are often grouped as follows (and [...]

Review: HP IMC – Intelligent Management Center

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 19:43:54 +0000

When you mention HP and “network management” to most people, they think of OpenView – one of the earliest players in the network management market. Love it or hate it, it was a dominant player in the enterprise network management space. Times change, and it’s moved on – the “OpenView” brand has been phased out, [...]

Show 95 – Security Onion With Doug Burks -or- Why IDS Rules and IPS Drools

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:00:33 +0000

Ethan Banks and Michele Chubirka (aka Mrs. Y aka the Network Security Princess) have a relaxed chinwag with Doug Burks, Deputy Chief Security Officer at Mandiant, community instructor for SANS, and the man behind Security Onion. What is Security Onion? To quote Doug’s website… Security Onion is a Linux distro for IDS (Intrusion Detection) and NSM [...]

A Fun Look at Workstations & Interfaces for IT Folks

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 07:00:50 +0000

Something light for your Friday… One thing I’ve never found overly satisfying in my IT work experience is my workstation. Keyboard jockeys who command large numbers of IT systems to do their bidding should have interfaces with excellent tactile feel and important information accessible at a glance. Reality? We get the keyboard we’re given, and [...]

Show 94 – Aerohive and Bonjour Gateway – Sponsored

packetpushers@gmail.com — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 19:10:21 +0000

Aerohive has recently announced Bonjour support for networking. If you aren’t familiar with Bonjour it’s the zero configuration protocol that used by Apple for all their devices to discover services on the network such as printers, AppleTVs, File Shares and more. Apple technologies such as Airplay (for music/media sharing), AirDrop (for file sharing) and Print [...]

Use a Cisco Nexus 5K as a Core Instead of a 7K? Isn’t That…Crazy?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 19:27:10 +0000

One of the challenges of dropping a Cisco Nexus 7K as a core switch into the small or even mid-sized enterprise IT shop is the cost. Have you priced a Nexus 7K? It’s a shocking capex number if you’re a smaller shop, and the ongoing opex for support isn’t cheap either. If you’re on a [...]

Meatspace Packet Pushers: Network Beers at the San Jose Doubletree 27-March-2012 @ 6PM

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 18:53:48 +0000

In the San Jose area? Well, come on by the San Jose Doubletree on Tuesday evening, 27-March-2012 from 6PM – 9PM local time. Say hi, sit down, and have a chinwag. Greg, Ethan, Mrs. Y, Cloud Toad, Tom, Ivan and more that have been on the show will be in the lobby hanging out for [...]

Could You Set the “Go Faster” Bit?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 14:25:50 +0000

When people (frequently from the apps team) complain about the performance of the network, I usually offer the following smarmy response, “Ohhhhh, I forgot to set the go-faster bit.” However, after doing some research on the subject of wire-speed packet capturing and optimal IDS/IPS architectures for virtual environments, I’ve discovered that there are actually ways [...]

Managing Your Job Versus Managing Your Career

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 20:32:36 +0000

I’m between jobs right now; I’m not much for downtime so I ended Friday and start the new gig Monday. But the last year has brought me some realizations regarding my career that I thought others might find interesting. A quick background for context, I passed my CCNA in December 1999 and my CCIE R&S [...]

Show 93 – Lies and Routing in the Internet

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 13:30:19 +0000

This show is few moments to breathe, take stock, and meditate about peace in our time and listen to someone else do the talking. Today, Packet Pushers is re-broadcasting a recording of a presentation by Geoff Huston from the AusCERT2011. I have to say that I’ve always known that Internet routing was a mess but Geoff [...]

Virtualizing Network Services, Part 1: the Beginning

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 06:03:01 +0000

The Purpose of the “Network” In this series of articles I intend to walk through a series of diagrams with a narrative that will lead us to a “cloud” and “automation” ready network design. Before we get started, we have to first answer a fundamental question: What does the network do? The purpose of [...]

Pill-Chomping Hackers and Security Whack-a-Mole

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 04:38:56 +0000

Tonight on twitter I saw an argument about how social-security numbers and credit card numbers are benign pieces of information and that they are only dangerous because of how banks and other organizations use them. I smell bullsh*t. Most PacketPushers followers are engineers. They get paid to think. We have some non-technical people too: Managers, [...]

Show 92 – HP TippingPoint Secure Virtual Framework With Sanjay Raja – Sponsored

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 20:00:47 +0000

The prime Pushers Ethan Banks and Greg Ferro chat with HP Security’s Sanjay Raja in this sponsored podcast about the TippingPoint Secure Virtual Framework (SVF). Sanjay Raja is a Product Marketing Manager with the TippingPoint organization, and describes in detail how SVF integrates into your VMware environment. What We Discuss Inspecting traffic sourced from VMs, [...]

The Heart of a Teacher vs. The Heart of a Know-It-All

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 03:06:40 +0000

In technology, the currency of our realm is knowledge, so it’s no surprise that we have a tendency to want to show off that knowledge. And this urge seems to manifest itself in two ways: Being a teacher, or being a know-it-all. If you work in IT, you’re probably familiar with a know-it-all or two. [...]

Show 91 – Packet Party Feb 2012

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 10:02:18 +0000

Packet Pushers had a Packet Party in Feb 17, 2012 with an Open Microphonr. The Packet Party was recorded live from event where we had about 90 people on the call. People from the audience would ask questions, and we throw to topic open for discussion. Overall the discussion was great, and we covered a [...]

Could We Have Some Estrogen With Our Engineering, Please?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 23:09:55 +0000

The other day a friend asked me if I thought engineering was a good field for women. She explained that college recruiters were encouraging her daughter, a high school junior, to consider engineering because of her aptitude for math and science. For a moment I was speechless, because while I wanted to be encouraging, I [...]

Quick Overview: Cisco GSS 4492R Global Site Selector GSLB DNS Appliance

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:30:42 +0000

Overview Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) refers to the munging of DNS answers such that a client is directed to a server that will result in the best experience for them. The answer munging can be based on a variety of criteria, including server availability, server load, and client location, among other things as configured [...]

Packet Pushers Has an IRC Channel on Freenode – #Packetpushers

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 04:18:23 +0000

If you find the notion of a Packet Pushers Internet Relay Chat channel appealing, well then – good news for you. We’ve created one. Please read the static IRC page with the details, including the rules (still a work in progress as folks make suggestions). E-mail packetpushers@gmail.com if you’d like to be an op and [...]

Start Your Day as a Producer – Not a Consumer

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:38:13 +0000

The Problem I always try to find new ways to help keep me motivated. These days, keeping up with information is a continuous battle. Email’s, Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, tech news, new trends and gadgets…and so on. Every day new devices are announced, and new applications are launched. They all claim to help solve our daily information [...]

10 Tenets of Working in IT

packetpushers@gmail.com — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 08:00:36 +0000

This article is a summary of a larger text that sits in various unexplored parts of my brain and has been accumulated through over 10 years of working in the IT industry in a wide variety of roles and an equally diverse range of companies from the very smallest to the largest. I’ve whittled a [...]

Making Effective Use Certification Exam Guides: Reading Ain’t Enough

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 08:00:12 +0000

One of the things people do to study for a certification exam is buy The Book (often spoken of in hushed, reverent tones). “The Book” is some flavor of certification guide that’s intended to fill your brain with all of the information required to pass a particular exam. Studying an exam guide has a certain [...]

Show 90 – Talking Career With Todd Lammle

packetpushers@gmail.com — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:50:26 +0000

Trainer, author, and long-time network industry veteran Todd Lammle joins Ethan Banks and Greg Ferro for a chat about the good ol’ days, the days ahead, and how to make it in the networking business. Todd’s worked at some legendary companies like Atari and Xerox. He’s been around the industry for a long time, and worked hard to [...]

Is OpenFlow Losing Its Openness? Part Two.

packetpushers@gmail.com — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:00:25 +0000

Following on from my first blog about OpenFlow, “Is OpenFlow Losing Its Openness?” I have done a lot of reading and have come to the below thoughts. First, I still think OpenFlow is cool technology and may grow into a truly useful product/feature, but … The issues as I see them. The issues I find [...]

Network, Interrupted

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:30:24 +0000

Dear Cisco and Juniper: Its been a good run, Cisco. Thank you for the CCIE. Thank you Juniper for the JNCIE. I learned a lot about networking because of you. But you are irrelevant now. Right now, I can buy a 64-core server with 768GB of RAM from HP for a mere $57k. That includes [...]

Using L2TPv3 for Layer 3 VPNs

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 08:00:22 +0000

Deploying L3VPNs using MPLS is common in service provider and—more recently—in enterprise environments. While not as widespread, using L2TPv3 as the foundation for RFC2547bis-like VPNs is a viable alternative that has its advantages. In this post, I’ll describe reasons for selecting L2TPv3 for L3VPN and highlight arguments against the protocol. I’ll refer to the technology [...]

Catch Unexpected Reboots Through Monitoring sysUpTimeInstance

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:31:56 +0000

If a router reboots, but the monitoring system didn’t poll it during that reboot time, did it really reboot? You might receive an SNMP cold start trap, but that’s not reliable. How do you know if the device rebooted unexpectedly? Some people might say that it doesn’t matter, the device is back up and running, [...]

Kindle Fire: First Impressions

packetpushers@gmail.com — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:21:16 +0000

Not a networking post as such, but I hope sufficiently nerdy that you’ll indulge me. I received my $180 refurbished Kindle Fire yesterday from Amazon. A new one is $200, but as the refurb came with the same warranty as new, I opted to save the $20. (You say “cheap.” I say “frugal.”) The Fire [...]

Book Review: Practical Packet Analysis, 2nd Edition

packetpushers@gmail.com — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 08:00:42 +0000

Book Details Practical Packet Analysis Chris Sanders No Starch Press; Second Edition (July 6, 2011) ISBN-13: 978-1593272661 Publisher Website Author Chris Sanders is a computer security consultant, author, and researcher. A SANS Mentor who holds several industry certifications, including CISSP, GCIA, GCIH, and GREM, he writes regularly for WindowSecurity.com and his blog, ChrisSanders.org. Sanders uses Wireshark daily for packet analysis. He [...]

An Open Letter to the Packet Pushers Community

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:45:20 +0000

I’m not your typical blogger, at least not compared to others on Packet Pushers. I’m not CCIE certified, I’m not (currently) a network engineer, and I can’t extoll all of the virtues of NHRP in NBMA environments. I am one of the often loathed and dreaded C-level executives who more often than not tie unrealistic [...]

Vi Primer for Network Engineers

packetpushers@gmail.com — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 01:50:14 +0000

Vi is arguably the best text editing software in the world. There, I said it… deal with it! It should be noted that while many people continue to refer to Vi simply as such, Vim (Vi improved) has been the standard since around 1998. Vi? Old and busted. Vim? New hotness. Vi isn’t an editor [...]

Show 89 – OSPF vs IS-IS Smackdown – Where You Can Watch Their Eyes Reload

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:15:58 +0000

In this show we discuss the the differences between OSPF & IS-IS routing protocols and the differences between them. protocol optimisations are both good and bad. How both protocols have poor metric generation OSPFv3 offers some hope for the future. QoS Based metrics in their forms – MPLS TE isn’t getting good adoption. Why do [...]

Work-Life Versus Cold Hard Cash

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:16:54 +0000

My previous post, “When Your Job Becomes Your Prison” seemed to hit a bit of a nerve with some of you out there, and I am grateful for the comments and sad to see that so many others recognized themselves in what I said. I concluded the article by saying that I am determined to [...]

A Packet Party – This Friday 17 Feb – Join Us

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:55:04 +0000

Packet Pushers are hosting a Packet Party. Anyone can come along to listen to a live discussed – it will be live and cost you nothing but your time. Greg & Ethan will be there and so will Ivan Pepelnjak, Tom Hollingsworth and we will ask other of our regular hosts to be there [...]

Show 88 – Server Internals and Network Performance

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:37:24 +0000

Having met at VMworld 2010, Daniel Bowers and I were having an ongoing discussion around server architectures and how they impact network performance. I convinced him to come onto the show and talk broadly about what goes on inside a server. Mostly we focus on how server performance impacts network performance. I wouldn’t call this a [...]

Show 87 – A SIP of Voice

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:38:42 +0000

The Packet Pushers voice crew reassembles, this time for a discussion of SIP trunks. Erik Peterson, Amy Arnold and Tom Hollingsworth are the technical talent this week, while Ethan Banks hosts and tries to keep up with the conversation without going, “Huh?” too many times. Hey, we can’t all be voice engineers. SIP gets a pretty [...]

Good Habits for Basic Ethernet Switchport Provisioning in a Cisco IOS Environment

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 21:04:58 +0000

An opening remark on this blog post that has grown to roughly 3,500 words is that it becomes impossible to cover every switchport command, scenario, and preference that could possibly apply to switchport provisioning. What I initially thought would be a fun little post has turned into a bit of a beast that talks through [...]

Is OpenFlow Losing Its Openness?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:39:34 +0000

Let get started with some background: About OpenFlow The OpenFlow Switching specification was created in 2008 to evangelize and support OpenFlow. Although hosted at Stanford University, our goal is for OpenFlow to be owned by the community – for the betterment of research and innovation in networking. The Stanford OpenFlow Team First let’s look at [...]

Understanding When a Cisco ASA NAT Rule Can Override the ASA Routing Table

packetpushers@gmail.com — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:38:59 +0000

Thanks to @bobmccouch who responded multiple times to my frustrated tweeting about Cisco ASA packet forwarding weirdness today. He pointed out some crucial forwarding behavior related to 8.3.1 and higher NAT, including some changes introduced as of 8.4.2. (Follow Bob. He tweets nerdy.) So…here’s the thing. A Cisco ASA does not always determine the egress [...]

Thank Goodness for NAT66

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:00:15 +0000

I’m participating in a beta test with my ISP for IPv6 connectivity. The ISP deployed a basic IPv6 service that relies exclusively on SLAAC for address assignment. I can connect my end stations to a gigabit switch with direct connectivity to the provider or insert a router in a path. Without receiving a /64 for [...]

Network Ninja Quality of Life: Enterprise vs. VAR

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:00:43 +0000

Like many of you, I’ve spent the last several years in an enterprise as the friendly neighborhood Network Ninja. And, like many of you, I became acutely aware of the downside to being the enterprise’s Network Ninja. I spent (way too) much time pondering if the grass was any greener on the other side before [...]

Show 86 – Connect to the IPv6 Internet for Free Using TunnelBroker.Net

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:34:07 +0000

Hurricane Electric’s Owen DeLong joins Ethan Banks and Greg Ferro to discuss TunnelBroker.net. What’s TunnelBroker.net? It’s a free service from Hurricane Electric that lets you connect to the IPv6 Internet across an IPv4-only connection. Want to get started with IPv6? This is a great way to go, not only for the connectivity, but also for the [...]

The Plight of an Engineer: Does Confidence Come From Peer Affirmation?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 08:00:35 +0000

Do you ever find yourself doing all the right things for the wrong reasons? If you’re anything like me, you do this more often than you would like to admit. It is far more common for me to get carried away with wrong thinking than it is to have pure motives. And it’s because of [...]

Why Salespeople Sell to Others in Your Organization but Not You

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:00:13 +0000

Have you noticed that after a few years with an employer that salespeople sort of stop calling you? And by “you”, I mean the hooded cubicle wizard with the keyboard who casts spells on network equipment? You’re the one who keeps everyone connected, troubleshoots the performance issues, fixes what’s broke, keeps the bad guys at [...]

When Your Job Becomes Your Prison

packetpushers@gmail.com — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:13:10 +0000

It has been a while since I last posted here, or anywhere for that matter. I have been taking a bit of a break from all things related to packets and frames after my first attempt at the CCIE R&S Lab and doing some interesting things, including looking for a new job. I finally left [...]

Packet Pushers Webinar on SDN & OpenFlow – Sponsored by Big Switch – Open Attendance

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:45:22 +0000

I'm pleased to announce that Big Switch have agreed to sponsor SDN & OpenFlow Webinar on February 7th, 2012 and that the event will be free and open to anyone to attend. Are you a Network Architect or Designer ? Are you responsible for strategy, long term vision, or simply keeping track of upcoming technologies ? If so, you will need to know more about OpenFlow and Software Defined Networking and how it impacts the future of Networking in software and hardware. And now, thanks to sponsorship from BigSwitch Networks, anyone can attend.

Video Is Not the New Voice

packetpushers@gmail.com — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:00:55 +0000

I spent some time last week with a networking vendor who demonstrated to us their voice system. Only it wasn’t about phones. Or dial plans. Or even voicemail. The demo was more like…”Yeah, yeah. Voice, phones, voicemail, SRST. Blah, blah, blah. That’s boring. It’s all about *collaboration* now.” The majority of the demo was about [...]

Is Cyber Security a Form of Violence?

packetpushers@gmail.com — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:00:04 +0000

This weekend I had an interesting conversation with my friend Suzanne Kryder. She’s a mindfulness expert and co-founder of a radio show called “Peace Talks.” She was giving me some feedback on my Shmoocon presentation and she said, “I’m really noticing the violence inherent in computer malware.” Her comment stopped me cold, because as a [...]

Juniper MAG6610 Performance Characteristics

packetpushers@gmail.com — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:00:06 +0000

I was asked a question by @cooperlees as to whether I’d see any real-world performance indications on the Juniper MAG 6610 Chassis. Whilst I have deployed about a dozen across the world, it’s still early days to definitively nail this down, but I’d thought I’d share what I can and provide some anecdotes as to [...]

Show 85 – Sponsored – The Span Port You Always Wanted – Gigamon

packetpushers@gmail.com — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:27:02 +0000

In this Sponsored show we talk to Gigamon about ” making the SPAN port what it always wanted to be”. In short, Gigamon makes switch devices that allow for powerful ways to capture traffic from your network, then slice, dice and forward it. If you have ever had problem with “not enough SPAN ports” for [...]