Uzbekistan 2024

Last year I went to Uzbekistan. I wanted to visit places from the Silk Road. This is the main guide I used. And I checked a bit this one too.

Plov was best in Tashkent in the Plov center. And tried several types of local bread, I liked them.

I was surprised with the amount of pomegranates and cotton fields! There is a lot of irrigation. Mostly taxis run on propane or similar. It seems UZ is energy free. Boxing and UFC are the king sports. I was surprised to see so many tour groups and not many solo travellers. I travelled in a TALGO train too 🙂

In general, it was a nice trip.

Advance Junos Troubleshooting

SWITCHING

inter-vlan
- verify network settings for each user: ip, mac, gw
- verify gw reachability
- verify MAC table: 
       show ethernet-switching table (control plane)
       show route forwarding-table family ethernet-switching (forwarding plane - PFE) both should be in sync
- verify STP: show spanning-tree interface
- verify vlan-interface association: show vlans X [detail]
- verify interface config: show configuration interface XXX
- where is gw: show route table inet.0
- fw session: show security flow session protocol icmp source-prefix IP

Route "rejected" for irb => check vlan config has l3-interface configured

LAG not coming up but config looks ok -> show configuration chassis aggregated-devices => device-count!

EVPN

east-west

- verify network settings for each user: ip, mac, gw
- verify gw reachability

- evpn-vxlan:
-- underlay: IGP (ospf-isis) or eBGP (loopbacks exchanged, peers up, etc)
   ---show bgp summary / show route receive/advertised-protocol bgp IP table inet.0
   ---show evpn databases

-- overlay: iBGP up, EVPN peers up
   --- show evpn instance extensive
   --- show evpn database
   --- show route table inet.0 protocol evpn

-- VXLAN: VTEPs established, up, EVPN routes (typ2/5 exchanged?
   --- show interfaces vtep
     type source: for the locally attached networks
     type Remote: for remote networks
   --- show vlan (mapping vlan-vni)
   --- show vlan X details -> l3-irbs, mapped interfaces, etc

-- communication between same vlan/vni? vlan-vni mapping identical in all devices?, IRB using commong VGA, IRB bound to VLANs
   --- show ethernet-switching vxlan-tunnel-end-point source
   --- show ethernet-switching vxlan-tunnel-end-point remote
   --- show interfaces terse irb
   --- show configuration interfaces irb
   --- show configuration vlans
   --- show ethernet-switching table

show bgp summary
   - bgp.evpn.0 receives all EVPN routes (LE and SP)
   - default-switch.evpn.0 - typ1,2,3 copied here (only LE, no in SP)
   - default_evpn.evpn.0 - typ4 copied here (only LE, no in SP)

show route summary
   :vxlan.inet.0 - holds the routes to remote VTEPs and uses inet.0 for route selection (because it has : in the name)

OSPF

ospf operational
   show ospf neighbor
   show ospf interface (loopbacks are in??)
   show interfaces x | match mtu
   show ospf overview
   show ospf statistics
   set protocols ospf traceoptions file X size 5m files 3 flag all
   show log X
   show configuration interface Y
   monitor traffic interface Y detail matching "proto ospf"
   request system decrypt password "xxxx" (onlu for $8$ or $9$ hashes)

adj state full
   show ospf database (* = entries generated by the local router)
   show route protocol ospf table inet.0

spf stable: duplicate RID?, flapping links?

routes in RIB: lsdb, asbr over non-bb area, 0/0 in nssa and stubs, prefix export limit, import/export policies
   - show route table inet.0
   - abr: nssa no-summaries -> routes in that area dont see any summary LSA for other areas => you may need to advertise a default (set protocols ospf area X nssa default-lsa default-metric 1)
   - show configuration protocols ospf

ISIS

(initializing -> mtu issue (at least 1492)

isis operational
   show isis adjacency
   show isis interface (loopbacks are in??)
   show interfaces x | match mtu
   show isis overview (if attached bit evaluation disabled -> default route (sent by L1L2) is not installed
   show isis statistics
   set protocols isis traceoptions file X size 5m files 3 flag error detail flag hello detail
   show log X
   show configuration interface Y
   monitor traffic interface Y detail matching "proto isis"
   request system decrypt password "xxxx" (onlu for $8$ or $9$ hashes)

adj state full
   show isis database (* = entries generated by the local router)
   show isis route
   show route protocol isis table inet.0

spf stable: duplicate NET?, flapping links?

routes in RIB: lsdb, levels?, 0/0 in l1, prefix export limit, import/export policies
   show route table inet.0
   abr: nssa no-summaries -> routes in that area dont see any summary LSA for other areas => you may need to advertise a default (set protocols ospf area X nssa default-lsa default-metric 1)
   show configuration protocols ospf
   show isis hostname
   show route table iso.0 <-- NET addresses!

BGP

iBGP
-ibgp established: security policies, fw rules, IGP routing, local address, auth, logs
set protocols bgp group int-group traceoptions file X size 5m files 3 flap open detail
show system connections

-ibgp stable: IGP stable? MTU, TCP MSS

-ibgp adverts: export policy, inactive routes, no-advertise community, bgp family

-ibgp receives: BGP next-hop, recursive routing

-routes in RIB: import policy

ROUTING LOOPS

take several traceroute
check where route redistribution takes place
set cli timestamp
show bgp summary (several times to see flapping)
show route received-protocol bgp PEER_IP table x.0 (several times to see flapping)
show route NET/MASK (several times)
show route hidden detail table x.0

MPLS L3VPN

control plane:
- pe-ce routing protocols
   -- show route table inet.0 (for P and PE Lo)
   -- show isis database detail

- ldp/rsvp
   -- show route table inet.3 (table with ingress LSPs from this router
   -- show route table mpls.0 (next LSR in each LSP). Loop-up LSPs and VPN labels
   -- show ldp session/neighbor
   -- show ldp database
*RT mismatch -> drop (no stored neither hiddne => go to the other peer and show route advertisedd-protocol bgp PE-IP)

- bgp
   -- show bgp summary
   -- show route table X.inet.0 (l3vpn table)
   -- show route advertising-protocol bgp PE-IP
   -- show route receive-protocol bgp PE-IP (is bgp.l3vpn.0 table???)
   -- show route receive-protocol bgp PE-IP detail table bgp.l3vpn.0
   -- *vrf-table-lable -> a LSI logical interface label is created and mapped to the VRF routing table.

data plane:
   -- ping mpls
   -- traceroute mpls ldp PE-Lo

Stateful FW

srx -> session-based
- show security flow status -> flow/packet-based
- show security flow session
- set security flow traceoptions file X size 2m files 3 flag basic-datapath packet-filter f1 protocol icmp destination-prefix FW-IP/32
- show interface X -> check security zone (Null drops all packets)
- show interface x detail | find Flow
- show security zones NAME
- show security screen statistics zone untrust | except 0
- show log messages | match RT_SCREEN or RT_IDS
- show security screen ids-option untrust-screen
- show configuration security screen
- set security zones security-zone X host-inbound-traffic system-override traceroute ping …

CHASSIS CLUSTER

OOB

fxp0: oob mgmt interface
fxp1/em0 - cp interface
fab - dp interace
swfab - switching dp interface
reth - redundant interface

show chassis cluster status
show chassis cluster interfaces
show interfaces terse | grep fxp
show configuration | display set | match apply-groups
  set apply-groups ${node}
show system users

fabric link

show chassis cluster interfaces
show chassis cluster status
show chassis cluster statistics (sent/received??)
show interfaces terse | grep fab

data-plane

show chassis cluster status
show chassis cluster interfaces
show interfaces terse | grep reth
show configuration chassis cluster

*routing table is not running in secondary node

CoS

CoS-Based IPSec VPN

show security ike security-associations
show security ipsec security-associations
show security ipsec inactive-tunnels
show configuration security ipsec vpn X
show class-of-service forwarding-class

CoS implementation

show interfaces X detail | find Egress -> check counters in queues

show configuration firewall family inet -> check filtes
show interfaces filters | match X
show class-of-service interface Y
show class-of-service rewrite-rule type dscp
                      scheduler-map X | match "Scheduler|Transmit"
                      classifier type dscp name X

The Lessons of History

I read this book based on this recommendation video. It’s tiny but got to the point.

  • History can’t be a science, it can be only an art by establishing a meaningful order in the chaos of materials, a philosophy by seeking perspective and enlightenment.

History is affected by many elements:

  • Geology /Geography: This was initially critical for creating civilization ( Egypt-Nile, Tigris/Euphrates-Mesopotamia, etc) But its influence diminishes as technology grows (Singapore, Israel, etc)
  • Biology: We are subject to the processes and trials of evolution. Life is competition. Life is selection.We are all born unfree and unequal. We are subjects to our DNA, psychology and tribe. Nature loves differences as the necessary ingredient for selection and evolution. Inequality grows with the complexity of civilization, and to keep that under control, liberty must be sacrificed (Russia 1917). Life must breed, shrinking population are conquered by the growing ones (Religion pushed for having families…) But if we grow too much, nature will give us pestilence, famine and war.
  • Race: Civilization is a co-operative product that nearly all people have contributed, it is our common heritage and debt.
  • Character: Evolution during recorded time has been more social than biological. The imitative majority follows the innovating minority. History in the large is the conflict of minorities. New ideas should be heard, but need proper scrutiny to flourish, as the “roots” will always feed a try.
  • Morals: Moral codes differ because they adjust themselves to historical and environmental conditions: hunting, agriculture and industry. The written history is usually quite different from the history usually lived. Perhaps discipline will be restored in our civilization through the military training required by the challenges of war. The freedom of the part varies with the security of the whole.
  • Religion: It was fear that first made the Gods. Catholicism survives because consoles and brightens the lives of the poor. Religion has many lives (types) and a habit of resurrection (remove one, another will take its place). Moral disorder may generate a religious revival. Religion has helped the states to keep the social order. And, as long as there is poverty, there will be gods.
  • Economics: For Karl Marx, History is economics in action. One of the secrets of bankers is to figure out the fluctuations of prices, they know history is inflationary, and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard. The concentration of wealth is a natural result of the concentration of ability and regularly recurs in history. And is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable redistribution (systole/diastole)
  • Socialism: This is part of the last point about the rhythm of concentration/dispersion of wealth. The fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom, and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality.
  • Government: The first condition of freedom is its limitation. Plato’s political evolution: monarchy, aristocracy, democracy and dictatorship. Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government, but has produced the best results. If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created, the road to dictatorship is up to grabs.
  • War: It is one of the constants of history. Peace is an unstable equilibrium, which can be preserved only by acknowledged supremacy or equal power. A world order will not come by a gentlemen’s agreement. States will unity in basic co-operation only when they are in common attacked by outsiders.
  • Growth and Decay: History is a cycle of civilizations. They decline due to the failure of its political and intellectual leaders to meet the challenges of change. Most civilizations pass on part of their culture to the next ones (Greece->Rome->Western World)
  • Progress in science and technology has brought some evil (nuclear energy, ultracommunication, processed food,etc) With great power comes great responsibility.

History is above all the creation and recording of heritage (passing culture)

DeepSeek, AWS HPC SDR vs Multipath-TCP, OCSP death, AlphaChip, Visual AI agents, Ollama, Local AI, Bob Bowman

Nice analysis about DeepSeek without hype.

AWS HPC: Didn’t know AWS offered HPC services (articule from 2021). I liked to find more details about SDR: Multipath LB, Out of Order delivery, congestion control similar to BBR. I wonder, this is not the same as UltraEthernet consortium is trying to achieve?

Multipath-tcp: The above probably works in “close” networks (managed by one entity) but maybe it is not going to work in the Wild internet. Still this looks still quite far from production. I believe this like QUID. Somebody like google deploys it and the rest jump in the wagon (more or less)

OCSP death: “OCSP is not making anyone more secure. Browsers are either not checking it or are implementing it in a way that provides no security benefits. “

AlphaChip: As far as I have read, designing chip is one of the most complex things and getting help from AI can even increase the advances in chip design. I read that NVIDIA had something similar. And this should be applied to ASICs too so networking is benefited

Vision Agent AskUI: need to try

ByteDance UI Agent – UI-TARS: as above

Crawl4AI: Interesting for digestion your local knowledge base sites and using with your local LLM….

Run your locally AI: I tried this in my work MacBook and it worked! I want to create an AI agent for a work project (actually i am dreaming to be able to achieve it….)

Open Web UI + Ollama: I tested this too in my MacBook and works like magic! You can even use DeepSeek 🙂

Bolt.diy + DeepSeek: I didnt manage to install bolt.diy ….

Training your AI: My idea is to get an open-source LLM trained with my data so I can use it to do my “job” But in the video there was too much publicity and I dont have access to a GPU… but I dont much data neither (or that’s what I think)

Bob Bowman (Michael Phelps coach): Show up, do the job.

Alchemy

Finished this book, and it is a gem! It is better than expected and very funny. The author is an advertising executive and the book goal is to teach you to think in a non-logical way. As an engineer, I feel that everything has to be logical and reasoned but Rory gives plenty of examples all over the book about logic not being always the only answer. I have highlighted so many lines that I think I can copy the book. It refers to behavioural economics (state agent showing 3 places, so you pick the ones they want you to pick, how to make a train join faster without faster trains (sol: make it more enjoyable)) and politics (Trump 1.0 victory, Brexit victory, etc)

So the two lessons from the book is to understand how the marketing works (as a consumer so you can understand it and it doesnt have to be logical…) and how you should be less logical so you can find different and still valid solutions.

Even this is mentioned to relationships, something that actually hit me…

Some videos from Rory (that I would like to watch)

The lost genius of irrationality

Behavioural Economics, Humas and Advertising.

Chocolate Salami

This is a typical sweet from Portugal too and I wanted to make it for some time, and this was triggered by chance via this video. And then I checked this one for getting an idea about the quantities

Ingredients

  • 250g maria biscuits (dont try to hard biscuits…)
  • 150g dark chocolate chopped
  • 50g cacao powder
  • 50g pistachio chopped
  • 70g butter

Process

  • Smash the biscuits, but dont make it powder!
  • Add the pistachios
  • Melt the chocolate and butter
  • Add to the biscuits
  • Mix well, like a dough
  • Pour the mix over clean film, try to roll like a chorizo
  • Let it cool down in the fridge.

Then you can decorate it like a salami if you wish

Obviously, it doesn’t look like in the videos (although it was tasty). My main mistake was using oat biscuits that are quite hard.

2nd Attempt. A bit better but still not as I would like it:

Chickpeas Chocolate Cake

I was curious about this cake and tried it.

Ingredients
800g Cooked chickpeas (2x cans)
200g peanut butter
120ml maple syrup
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2g salt
100g chocolate 90% chopped roughly

Decoration
150g melted chocolate 90%
150g peanuts crushed

Process:

  • Pre-heat oven at 190C
  • Put all ingredients together but the chopped chocolate in a food processor.
  • Once it is all mixed (it is like a very dense peanut butter), add the chocolate chips and mix with a spoon.
  • Pour the mix into a mold of 25x10cm with parchment paper.
  • Bake at 190C for 40-45m
  • While it cools down, prepare the decoration. Melt chocolate using “mary bath” (you can add a bit of butter to make more glossy).
  • Add the crashed peanuts to the chocolate and pour it over the cold cake. Spread in all sides.
  • Let it cool down again.

Before getting into the oven

After letting it cool down:

To be honest, it is not very sweet. I used 90% chocolate but still is tasty. So you can put a bit more maple syrup and 70-80% chocolate.

It goes great with a glass of milk or even whipped cream!

This cake is a protein bomb!

AusNOG 2024

A bit late to review, but some interesting talks. Agenda.

Arista: Practical AI Networking Innovations:

rail optimized
all reduce

low entropy, 2-3 flows per nic, elephant, bursty

JCT job completion time
TSN time spent networking

overprovisioning 1:1.2

Nokia: NUTS python network testing:

It looks quite nice, it is based on pytest and nornir/napalm. It looks similar to batfish?

Measuring Starlink:

High jitter, each 15sec change satellite -> micro-loss. BBR (non-loss sensitive) is the best flow protocol protocol with Starlink. ECN.

A Dangerous Fortune

I read this book a second time without realising. The first time was several years ago, I think it was one of first English books bough in paper. The second time was a cheap deal at 99p for the ebook.

And, I enjoyed it. The thrill, the twists, really engaging. It reminds to “The Pillars of the Earth” It is funny how this reminds me to all the bank crashes we had in 2008/9 and even last year in Silicon Valley. We don’t learn.

Taxtopia

This book showed me how screw up we are with the tax system, because it doesn’t apply to all. It is overcomplicated, and it you make a mistake, you pay dearly.

I think it is quite radical but at the beginning, the book gives a very radical example of a the tax system as a way to slow down inflation…. because governments have the printing money machine.

One important question is how you define a “company”. It has all the features as a person, it can buy/sell things, sue/be sued, but it is controlled but different people that are putting the money.

At the end, the author suggest to only tax people, remove all other taxes, you only pay if you get wealthier… but still dont fully understand how that could stop “rich”and companies not paying taxes. At the end of the day, all main governments are keeping all the tax heaven places so we are not going anywhere. Is blockchain a solution?

Different ways to pay less taxes is to borrow on your wealth and set up a trust… high level looks fine but can this be done by a “normal” person?

Some recommendations: blog, book