Scott Lowe

DECEMBER 11, 2020

Servers/Hardware. Kay Singh collects some user comments on the new M1-powered Apple hardware. Jonathan Bowman writes about the new crypto policies in Fedora 33 and whether you’ll need to adjust your SSH keys. Operating Systems/Applications. Martin Heinz discusses that very topic in this post. Programming.

Linux 60

Linux Network Tools Hardware 60

Scott Lowe

JUNE 18, 2021

The collection of links shared below covers a fairly wide range of topics, from old Sun hardware to working with serverless frameworks in the public cloud. Via Ivan Pepelnjak, I was pointed to Jon Langemak’s in-depth discussion of working with Linux VRFs. Servers/Hardware. Operating Systems/Applications.

Vmware 60

Vmware Hardware Load Balancer Apple 60

Scott Lowe

OCTOBER 23, 2020

” Ivan Pepelnjak attempts to answer the question, “How much do I need to know about Linux networking?” ” Speaking of Linux networking…Marek Majkowski of Cloudflare digs deep into conntrack , used for stateful firewalling functionality. Servers/Hardware. Operating Systems/Applications.

Open Source 60

Open Source Vmware Disaster Recovery Linux 60

Scott Lowe

MARCH 10, 2023

Servers/Hardware Kevin Houston provides some instructions on backing up the Dell PowerEdge MX7000 settings and configurations. Cloud Computing/Cloud Management This article on using Open Policy Agent (OPA) as a custom Lambda authorizer for the AWS API Gateway was informative and helpful. Both are great reads.

IPv6 74

IPv6 Linux Tools Network 74

Scott Lowe

APRIL 29, 2022

Servers/Hardware. Liam Galvin shows a couple of ways that Rego (the language behind Open Policy Agent) can be used maliciously. Operating Systems/Applications. Jorge Castro encourages folks to just kill the silly myths (regarding desktop Linux). Lucas Pardue and Christopher Wood share a primer on proxies.

Linux 74

Linux Storage Programming Applications 74

Scott Lowe

AUGUST 27, 2021

I have a fairly diverse set of links for readers this time around, covering topics from microchips to improving your writing, with stops along the way in topics like Kubernetes, virtualization, Linux, and the popular JSON-parsing tool jq along the way. Michael Kashin shares the journey of containerizing NVIDIA Cumulus Linux.

Linux 60

Linux Load Balancer Malware Virtualization 60

Scott Lowe

OCTOBER 5, 2018

Servers/Hardware. The big news in the hardware space recently was the article regarding the purported Chinese hardware supply chain attack. Of the (innumerable) articles commenting on the hardware hack, this article by Joe FitzPatrick and this ErrataSec article caught my eye. Operating Systems/Applications.

Hardware 60

Hardware Open Source Vmware Linux 60

Scott Lowe

JULY 17, 2020

This is a great read overall, but one sentence in particular really caught my eye: “30 years ago I was able to write a complete multitasking operating system in Z80 assembly code. Jon Langemak is blogging again, and he jumps back into the “blogging saddle” with a post on working with tc on Linux systems.

Linux 60

Linux Apple Operating Systems Policies 60

Scott Lowe

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

The rise of the disaggregated network operating system (NOS) marches on: this time, it’s Big Switch Networks announcing expanded hardware support in Open Network Linux (ONL) , upon which its own NOS is based. Servers/Hardware. I use OTR with Adium on OS X, and OTR with Pidgin on my Fedora Linux laptop.).

Vmware 60

Vmware Linux Storage Load Balancer 60

Scott Lowe

AUGUST 23, 2019

Servers/Hardware. I came across this article on tools and methods for auditing Kubernetes RBAC policies , which had some new tools I hadn’t seen before. has a post on using Sonobuoy to test Kubernetes Network Policy enforcement (this is to ensure that your installed CNI plugin has the abilitiy to enforce Netowrk Policies).

Linux 60

Linux Storage Policies Network 60

Scott Lowe

FEBRUARY 28, 2022

Servers/Hardware. William Lam takes a look at some potentially interesting homelab hardware. Rory McCune writes about a CVE in the Linux kernel that could allow for container escape in Kubernetes. It’s a shame the site doesn’t appear to have an RSS/Atom feed… Operating Systems/Applications.

Storage 79

Storage Hardware Policies Open Source 79

The Accidental Successful CIO

MARCH 9, 2016

In order for the software to operate correctly, the supporting software in the environment has to be identical to the software that was present when the software was developed. The network topology might be different, or the security policies and storage might be different. The software that your team has created has to run on it.

Operating Systems 100

Operating Systems Software Software Virtualization 100

Scott Lowe

MAY 17, 2019

Courtesy of Tigera, Alex Pollitt shares some guidelines on when Linux conntrack is no longer your friend. Servers/Hardware. Apparently Dell’s new docking stations support firmware updates via Linux. I’m thankful that Bill Demirkapi followed a responsible disclosure policy. Operating Systems/Applications.

Linux 60

Linux Dell Open Source Licensing 60

Scott Lowe

DECEMBER 6, 2019

The one caveat to his approach that may be worth mentioning is that some policies (a PodSecurityPolicy or the use of Open Policy Agent) may prevent the user from launching a Pod connected to the host’s network namespace. Servers/Hardware. Operating Systems/Applications. Cloud Computing/Cloud Management.

Vmware 60

Vmware Network Linux Hardware 60

Scott Lowe

MAY 29, 2020

Servers/Hardware. Jason Price shares a fully fleshed-out example of Kubernetes Pod Security Policies. Operating Systems/Applications. Nicola Apicella has a nice, in-depth write-up discussing Docker images, overlay file systems, and the OCI specification. Read his write-up here. Ubuntu 20.04 Virtualization.

Linux 60

Linux Virtualization Security Backup 60

The Verge

MAY 12, 2020

But I’m just as interested in something they share: their attempts to bring their desktop operating systems into the modern era of what I’ll call “Managed Operating Systems.” That’s not to say operating systems like macOS or Windows 10 are un managed, of course, but they’ve historically tended to be a little more open.

Windows 74

Windows Operating Systems Linux System 74

Scott Lowe

JANUARY 6, 2015

Michael Webster isn’t a name that normally pops up here in the Networking section of my Technology Short Takes, but he recently wrote an article on installing Cumulus Linux from a MacBook Pro that I thought might be handy. Open Network Linux (main website here ; GitHub repo here ) was recently brought to my attention. Servers/Hardware.

Linux 60

Linux Dell Vmware Network 60

Scott Lowe

JUNE 2, 2016

Servers/Hardware. Intel clearly has its sights set on expanding beyond just “servers” into many more platforms, including network hardware platforms. The first article provides a blueprint for migrating applications to VMware NSX ; the second article supplies some tips for creating filtering policies in VMware NSX.

Vmware 60

Vmware Virtualization Linux Windows 60

Scott Lowe

MARCH 1, 2019

VyOS is an open source Linux-based network operating system.). Servers/Hardware. James Hamilton is back with a more in-depth look at the components of the AWS Nitro System. Stefan Büringer writes about how you can implement “advanced” RBAC functionality in Kubernetes using Open Policy Agent (OPA).

Operating Systems 60

Operating Systems Authentication Network Open Source 60

Data Center Knowledge

JULY 15, 2013

Even Facebook, which has open sourced much of its designs for its data center hardware but remains vague about its server count, saying only that it operates “hundreds of thousands” of machines. Microsoft’s ‘Cloud Operating System’ 218,000 Servers in Microsoft Data Centers?

Data Center 276

Data Center Microsoft Data Disaster Recovery 276

Scott Lowe

MAY 4, 2017

Servers/Hardware. If you’re trying to wrap your head around AWS IAM policies, I have yet to find a resource I can recommend more strongly than this article on AWS IAM policies in a nutshell. I strongly recommend using this article to help further your understanding of AWS IAM policies. Operating Systems/Applications.

Vmware 60

Vmware Storage Network Examples 60

Scott Lowe

APRIL 19, 2019

Milind Gunjan shares some tips for troubleshooting Linux bridged networking on a KVM host. Servers/Hardware. Tim Hinrichs discusses securing the Kubernetes API with Open Policy Agent. Pod Security Policies (PSPs) are an important security feature in Kubernetes. ” Operating Systems/Applications.

Open Source 60

Open Source Tools Policies Cloud 60

Scott Lowe

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Servers/Hardware. Panagiotis Georgiadis explains how to enable PSP (Pod Security Policies) with Traefik. Operating Systems/Applications. Jorge Castro shares some informal notes on using Clear Linux as an everyday DevOps/cloud-native/Kubernetes client.

Network 60

Network Resources Devops Vmware 60

Scott Lowe

JANUARY 6, 2018

When you’re operating at the scale at which Netflix operates, this is no trivial feat. Servers/Hardware. Christian Kellner talks about work done on Thunderbolt 3 security levels for GNU/Linux. Tim Hinrichs provides some details on Rego , the policy language behind the Open Policy Agent project.

Linux 60

Linux Vmware Comparison Network 60

Scott Lowe

DECEMBER 29, 2016

Andrey Khomyakov shares some information on automating the setup of whitebox switches running Cumulus Linux in part 2 of this series on learning network automation. Servers/Hardware. Operating Systems/Applications. could make RDP connections to modern Windows systems. Alpine Linux 3.5 was recently released.

Vmware 60

Vmware Linux Open Source Data Center 60

Scott Lowe

MARCH 10, 2015

I highly recommend you read the entire post, but in short the five skills Matt recommends are software skills (which includes configuration management and software development tools like Git ), Linux, deep protocol knowledge, hypervisor and container networking, and IPv6. Servers/Hardware. What does this mean?

Vmware 60

Vmware Linux Hardware Software Development 60

Scott Lowe

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

As described in this Metacloud blog post , vxfld is designed to “handle VXLAN traffic from any operationg system or hardware platform that adheres to the IETF Internet-Draft for VXLAN” Nir Yechiel recently posted part 1 of a discussion on the need for network overlays. Servers/Hardware. Virtualization. LTS server.

Linux 60

Linux Network Vmware Disaster Recovery 60

Scott Lowe

MARCH 30, 2018

Sean Howard talks about using the NSX Service Compose to create a more elegant ruleset for enforcing security policy. Servers/Hardware. Operating Systems/Applications. Flatcar Linux is a “friendly fork” of Container Linux (of CoreOS). Trying to decide between GKE, AKS, and EKS?

Linux 60

Linux Vmware Windows Applications 60

Scott Lowe

SEPTEMBER 22, 2017

Vincent Bernat has a really in-depth article on IPv4 route lookup on Linux (and one on IPv6 route lookup as well). Servers/Hardware. Corey Quinn dives into some of the “secret sauce” behind Amazon Route 53 ; specifically, health checks and traffic policies. Operating Systems/Applications. Networking.

Storage 60

Storage Vmware Load Balancer Network 60

Scott Lowe

AUGUST 8, 2014

It would be great to see Docker get support for connecting containers directly to Open vSwitch (OVS), which is generally considered the de facto standard for networking on Linux hosts. Servers/Hardware. Operating Systems/Applications. Another series on VMware NSX has popped up, this time from Jon Langemak.

Vmware 60

Vmware Linux Virtualization Network 60

Scott Lowe

APRIL 8, 2014

Servers/Hardware. Here’s a quick article on how to assess if your Linux-based server is affected. This isn’t as straightforward as building a Linux image (no surprises there), but I did find a few good articles that helped along the way. Operating Systems/Applications. See here for details.

Vmware 60

Vmware Windows Virtualization Storage 60

Scott Lowe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

To take advantage of high-capacity flash in the memory bus, Diablo supplies drivers for all the major operating systems (OSes), including ESXi, and what this driver does is modify the way that page swaps are handled. At that point, the system DRAM almost looks like another level of cache. Summary and Wrap-Up.

Meeting 62

Meeting Storage Hardware Network 62

ForAllSecure

APRIL 26, 2022

Stuxnet targets supervisory control and data acquisition systems. Instead of just targeting zero days in the Windows operating system- which it did -- it then infected Siemens Step7 systems, causing the fast-spinning centrifuges to tear themselves apart. Of course our guest on this episode, he already knew all that.

System 52

System Industry Conference Network 52

ForAllSecure

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

Vamosi: There are at least two complete operating systems available for pentesters. The more famous of these is Kali Linux, from Offensive Security. There are other pentesting operating systems like Parrot. It has its own operating system, its own resources, and its own drive. And it’s free.

Network 52

Network Applications Security Operating Systems 52

ForAllSecure

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

Vamosi: There are at least two complete operating systems available for pentesters. The more famous of these is Kali Linux, from Offensive Security. There are other pentesting operating systems like Parrot. It has its own operating system, its own resources, and its own drive. And it’s free.

Network 52

Network Applications Security Operating Systems 52

ForAllSecure

APRIL 30, 2020

They're usually buying black box software or hardware that they really don't know what's inside and they have no real chance to look at the source code or the inner workings of it. The way you exploit windows is different than the way you exploit Linux, which is different than the way you exploit an embedded operating system.

Security 52

Security Software Software Development 52

ForAllSecure

APRIL 30, 2020

They're usually buying black box software or hardware that they really don't know what's inside and they have no real chance to look at the source code or the inner workings of it. The way you exploit windows is different than the way you exploit Linux, which is different than the way you exploit an embedded operating system.

Security 52

Security Software Software Development 52