Today I’m diving into the world of Secure Boot, TPM2, and all of the complications that come with wanting a high level of security without having to type a disk encryption key all the time. Ultimately, my goal is to come up with a solution that I can roll out in my Linux-based business environment, but today I’m walking you through the basics of how full disk encryption works with LUKS and enrolling your first key into the TPM.

I’ve been working on taking back my data (from Microsoft) by building out my business around Linux. But, the big question I get every time I talk about it is ‘What about Group Policy?’. Of course, Group Policy is the name of a Microsoft product, and you wouldn’t try to manage your ChromeOS fleet with it, so why try to force it on Linux too? Fundamentally, it’s just a method of pushing registry and configuration to machines, which we can already do on Linux with packages or automation, but of course the Linux desktop is not a clone of Windows, so what configuration should we push?

Today, I’m trying to solve a problem for my Anti-Microsoft Organization - how to manage installing software and configurations on organizational computers. I’m building my own packages, and relying on the package manager (apt or dnf) to manage my software! Contents Video Package Test Deb Package Deb Repository Rpm Package Rpm Repository Video Package Test I’m going to create a Git repo which holds all of the configuration packages in my organization.

Today I’m taking a look at my MONO Gateway - but with my own software twist. You may know I am not a fan of the OpenWRT project for end users (mostly due to their very poor and inconsistent documentation), and usually recommend OPNsense, but this time I want to build something DECLARATIVE! So I’m of course going back to just plain Debian. I’m using systemd-networkd for this, so all of the configs are in systemd’s ini-style.

Today I am taking a look at the weird world of multicast, where packets get delivered more than once, and we route using a backwards routing table. But, once you understand how it works, a whole world of content distribution possibilities open up to you! Inspired by an old video by @TallPaulTech, I’m using live TV distribution as an example of how multicast works, and how it can potentially be a massive upgrade to your network in oddly niche use cases.

In this project, I explore using my new Autonomous System Number (ASN) to start my own content delivery network. It doesn’t really host much, just my own internal services, but it should show all of the challenges of running stuff ‘at scale’ (i.e. beyond one single node and datacenter). Starting my own Content Delivery Network In the first video, I introduce my CDN and how I will direct viewers - using BGP-based-anycast, or DNS-based distribution?

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.

In this project, I get my own Autonomous System Number (ASN) and start using it to explore the world of BGP routing on the internet, with my own /40 in the default-free zone! Starting my own AS for Fun (No profit) In the first video, I introduce my CDN and how I will direct viewers - using BGP-based-anycast, or DNS-based distribution? I also play with my first experiment, measuring the latency over dns and bgp.