We feature technical articles across the entire IT spectrum - Networking, security, operating systems, cloud, and programming.

Cisco ASA 5585X Architecture Deep Dive

Introduction Within this article we will take an in-depth look into the architecture of the Cisco ASA 5585X. CHASSIS The Cisco ASA 558X is a chassis based firewall. The chassis consists of 2 slots, each slot can be populated with either an SSP (Security Services Processor) or Interface Module (ASA5585-NM-XX). The SSPs come in various … Read more

How to Create an Instance within Nova via the CLI

Within this article we will show you how to create an instance within Nova via the CLI. Available Images First of all we list the images available to Nova. root@openstack-lab:~# nova image-list+————————————–+————————–+——–+——–+| ID | Name | Status | Server |+————————————–+————————–+——–+——–+| 23e82-5d3c-43a2-82b5-457f5e7 | cirros-0.3.2-x86_64-disk | ACTIVE | |+————————————–+————————–+——–+——–+ Flavours Next we check the flavours available. root@openstack-lab:~# … Read more

Juniper SRX – How to Create a ReadOnly Account

Within this article we will provide the necessary commands required to create a read-only account on a Juniper SRX. Within our example a user is created with the following attributes, A user with the username of ‘user1‘. ONLY allowed to use the show command. SNMP configuration is REMOVED from the configuration output. The policy-options and … Read more

How to Build Packet Analysis Reports via the CommandLine

If you want to perform any form of packet analysis/reporting there is, really, only one program to use. Yep you guessed it, Wireshark. However as Wireshark is a GUI based program, it raised the question, How do you build a packet analysis report via the commandline ? Within this article we will show you 2 … Read more

MySQL – How to Create/Assign a User to a Database

Below shows you the syntax required to assign a user (along with password) to a MySQL database. This is useful for assigning separate permissions across your databases rather then just assigning root access across the board. mysql> GRANT ALL ON <DATABASE>.* TO <USERNAME>@localhost IDENTIFIED BY ‘<PASSWORD>’;

Python – What is TDD (Test-Driven Development) ?

What is TDD ? TDD (Test-driven development) is software design approach where your code is written around your tests. With TDD the test is first created, this test initially fails. The minimum amount of code is then written to ensure the test passes. This approach provides the following benefits, promotes the creation of more efficient … Read more

Python – No module named MySQLdb

Issue When trying to import MySQLdb you may find that the module is not available. And experience an error such as, django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Error loading MySQLdb module: No module named MySQLdb Solution The solution is to install MySQL-python i.e pip-2.7 install MySQL-python PIP INSTALL Error However, when trying to install MySQL-python you may then get the following … Read more

F5 VLAN Failsafe with Standby-Standby Route Domains

Problem You may observe both devices, within an F5 HA pair, going into a standby-standby when, VLAN Failsafe is enabled on a segment Route Domains are configured There is no server present on the given segment The F5 version is lower then 11.2.0 Reason The reason for this is based around bug id 388270 and also … Read more

Active/Standby Network Devices connected via vPC

fw-vpc

Within this article we will  look at a simple network design and the various caveats and considerations involved. Initial Design The initial design (shown below) is simple – a pair of network devices (in this instance Cisco ASAs) connected to a pair of Nexus 3k’s switches. Each firewall is connected to both switches via the … Read more

BIGIP F5: SSL Profile Changing Parent Removes Certificate, Key & Chain

Issue When updating the parent profile on a client SSL profile the cert-key-chain settings are inherited from the new parent profile. Even though the cert-key-chain is explicitly configured within the child profile. Consider the following, You have a client SSL profile ‘CLIENTSSL’ with the cert, key and chain configured along with a parent profile set … Read more