The ramblings of a computer geek
An Arista Network uses two main approaches for the routing and switching of traffic across the network; there are others, but these are the main ones to consider. Raw Routing (using BGP) with Virtual Router and MLAG Leaf Example Pattern The example given here is a simple example pattern of what a Raw Routing – … Read more
Netcat (nc) is a simple, but very useful tool to perform connection tests and scans on your network. Its helpful to quickly check if a port is open (and listening) on a remote machine and that firewall change you made is working as expected. Here i’ll provide some simple examples for you to try. Check … Read more
We’re using Containerd for to run the containers within our Kubernetes environment. But if we want to quickly spin up some containers for testing, or more likely create our own container images, we can use Docker. Before we can start to create our own container images, we need to install Docker and then register it … Read more
The MLAG (Multi Link Aggregation Group) allows two or more links to be bonded together to form a single virtual link, even when that is spread across two Leaf Switches. Fundamentally the approach for this is exactly the same as is the case with Extreme Networks, Cisco etc. only the syntax is slightly different. Its … Read more
SCP (Secure Copy Protocol) is a useful command to copy files between systems, we’ll explore a few example scenarios that you’ll commonly use. I’m not going into great detail about all the various arguments and options you can use, these you can find in other articles elsewhere. Instead this is going to be a very … Read more
If you wish to use plug-in solar within the UK, once installed you need to notify to your DNO (Distribution Network Operator), this will vary depending on where you are within the UK. The documentation here was correct at the time of writing, I urge you to check the current status and not rely fully … Read more
Ansible Vault encrypts secret variables or entire YAML files inside the repository. To unlock (see) these at the point of running the Ansible Playbook you need the Vault Password to unlock them. We’re going to create a simple example to illustate how it can be used. Ensure you have added the SSH Key to your … Read more
So you have a folder and within that folder you have a single subfolder (and no other files) at that level, but then some files inside the subfolder. VScode by default will compact path in the GUI. For example I have a folder structure like this: ~\projects\ansible-lab\~\projects\ansible-lab\hosts~\projects\ansible-lab\plays~\projects\ansible-lab\roles The projects folder only contains one folder “ansible-lab” … Read more
I was getting the following error with Ansible when running a Playbook against a server: It turned out that Ansible was attempting to perform an “apt update” and failing, but just ended up timing out. Manually running “apt update” then gave the following error, which was what was tripping up the Playbook and causing it … Read more
GNS3 can run on Windows, Linux or MacOS, however for large scale network simulations running it on a dedicated server machine (typically Linux) is recommended. The deployment of this can be difficult due to limited documentation, the following provides a guide for the installation of GNS3 on a dedicated Linux server, ideally with as much … Read more