Should have seen this coming I suppose, but today the server which (a) provides our DNS cache, (b) is our DHCP server, (c) is our web proxy server (Squid) and (d) is our network syslog host, fell over in a heap. The astute observers amongst you will appreciate that this is a Bad Thing. To… (read more)

Avatar (n.): An image representing a user online or in a multi-user virtual reality space. A Gravatar, is a ‘globally-recognised’ avatar. This means that you can use the same avatar in a number of locations on the ‘net, blogs etc. Register your email address and an image at the Gravatar site. So long as you… (read more)

Relating to the VNUML setup mentioned in the previous post, I’ve been tinkering with IP tables to write firewall and routing rules for our new network. I’ve tried to ‘learn’ IP tables several times, and repeatedly find myself thinking that I’ve got it sussed only to realise that I’ve misunderstood something really critical. I am… (read more)

Last week I discovered a most excellent piece of software, namely VNUML. As their web page says, it is “a general purpose virtualization tool designed to quickly define and test complex network simulation scenarios”. That means you can test network ideas and design decisions without having to deploy spare kit or mess with an existing… (read more)

Didn’t really want to do this, but I’m getting fed up with removing spam comments from this weblog, so … as of now any comments you leave here will not appear until they are approved by me. This may mean a delay of anything from a few minutes to a few hours before your comment… (read more)

Seem to be doing a bit of ‘family Windows PC’ support at the moment. Have dished out copies of AVG Anti-Virus to people, plus running spyware checks. One of these was my little brother, who has been running a non-virus-protected PC for some time and it has “started doing strange things”: I’ve given him a… (read more)

Well, we’ve reached 2005 at last. This year with be Bandwidth Year, once work moves to new premises in June. Christmas and related stuff: Have finally got “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” on DVD, although have not yet found a free four-hour slot to watch it! Also, got a copy of Hacker’s… (read more)