Import GNS3 VM into PVE: Start from VMWare ESXI image (ova / zip) Copy to a location on the Proxmox system (i.e. a network share or /root) cd to the directory the ova is in # Extract zip it came in unzip GNS3*.zip # Resulting file in my case was called `GNS3 VM.ova' (with a space in the name!) # Extract OVA (this is itself a zip) tar -xvf 'GNS3 VM.

Today I’m finally starting to put my AS Number to use, rolling out my Content Delivery Network! Currently it’s actually not delivering anything useful, just some neat statistics, but it’s helping me learn how CDNs work and share that with all of you. Here’s a neat visualizer which helps show how users end up at the CDN, when directed via DNS (geo-dns) and BGP (anycast). AI disclaimer: The DNS server (github link) and my-ip page (link) were written without the use of any AI tools.

Today I’m tackling an issue that gets a lot of network engineers really hung up - in the old days, pushing DHCP data into DNS seemed like a good idea, but now it’s just garbage all around. What are some solutions you can use instead? Today I have three solutions - mDNS (multicast DNS), pushing DNS configs as part of automation (Ansible example), and pushing DNS from the host itself using the DNS protocol (nsupdate).

Today, in the next eposide on my Personal AS series, I have added a third POP / fourth router, and that means I need to configure the POP all over again. That’s a lot of work, so I automated it with Ansible! Also follow along to see my first use of Netbox for automation Contents Video Ansible - Inventory Ansible - Software Setup Ansible - Network Config Ansible - Routing Config Video Ansible Inventory Here’s the final version of my Ansible inventory/hosts.

Today I’m taking a look at the Plumspace Smart SFP - a dual core ARM Cortex A53 stuffed inside a 1310nm SFP optical transceiver, which can deal with packet flows at line rate*. Quite a neat little thing, with plenty of use cases. Plumspace Smart SFPs: Link Contents Video Bridging Bridging - Ntopng Routing Routing - NAT44 Routing - NAT46 (CLAT) Wireguard OpenSSL Bench Video Bridging Kernel defaults for br0, configured using /etc/network/interfaces:

Today I’m setting up a GPON network in my homelab. GPON is the ITU’s Gigabit-class Passive Optical Network technology, one of the most commonly deployed fiber to the home technologies. While it’s being replaced by its faster descendant XGS-PON, it’s still capable of 2.44Gbps down / 1.22Gbps up across 128 clients, all using only passive optical components between the headend (OLT) and clients (ONU). I’ve got a single-port Optical Line Terminal (OLT) made by CData, as well as 8x client Optical Network Units (ONU) also made by CData.