Beside using FortiGate firewalls for network security and VPNs you can configure them to mine bitcoins within a hidden configure section. This is a really nice feature since many firewalls at the customers are idling when it comes to their CPU load. And since the FortiGates use specialized ASIC chips they are almost as fast … Continue reading Using a FortiGate for Bitcoin Mining
This is actually a bad user experience problem: To generally omit the manual verification of SSH key fingerprints I am using SSHFP. With fully qualified domain names (FQDN) as the hostname for SSH connections such as ssh nb10.weberlab.de this works perfectly. However, admins are lazy and only use the hostname without the domain suffix to connect … Continue reading SSHFP: FQDN vs. Domain Search/DNS-Suffix
I am intensely using the SSH Public Key Fingerprint (SSHFP, RFC 4255) in all of my environments. Since my zones are secured via DNSSEC I got rid of any “authenticity of host ‘xyz’ can’t be established” problems. As long as I am using my central jump host with OpenSSH and the “VerifyHostKeyDNS yes” option I … Continue reading SSHFP behind CNAME
A few weeks ago I published a pcap file along with many challenges in order to invite anyone to download and to solve it. Though there are not that many answers posted in the comment section I hope that the trace file will help many people understanding the layer 2/3 protocols or to work with … Continue reading Wireshark Layer 2-3 pcap Challenge Answers
Following is a list of the most common Cisco device configuration commands that I am using when setting up a router or switch from scratch, such as hostname, username, logging, vty access, ntp, snmp, syslog. For a router, I am also listing some basic layer 3 interface commands, while for a switch I am listing … Continue reading Basic Cisco Configuration
Second post of this little series. While I was using my CCNP SWITCH lab for testing many different protocols, I “showed” and saved the output of those protocols as well. Refer to the lab overview of my last post in order to understand those outputs. I basically saved them as a reference for myself in … Continue reading CCNP SWITCH Lab show commands
While preparing for my CCNP SWITCH exam I built a laboratory with 4 switches, 3 routers and 2 workstations in order to test almost all layer 2/3 protocols that are related to network management traffic. And because “PCAP or it didn’t happen” I captured 22 of these protocols to further investigate them with Wireshark. Oh … Continue reading Wireshark Layer 2-3 pcap Analysis w/ Challenges (CCNP SWITCH)
If you are using a Lastline device (Manager, Engine, Sensor or Pinbox) you can reach the machine via SSH after you activated it via monitoring_user_password . However, per default this uses only a password for authentication. If you want to use the key-based authentication for this “monitoring” user account you can add the public key to … Continue reading Lastline SSH Key-Based Authentication for “monitoring” User
Yes I know, ScreenOS is “End of Everything” (EoE). However, for historical reasons I am still managing many Netscreen/ScreenOS firewalls for some customers. Similar to my troubleshooting CLI commands for Palo Alto and Fortinet I am listing the most common used commands for the ScreenOS devices as a quick reference / cheat sheet. These are … Continue reading CLI Commands for Troubleshooting Juniper ScreenOS Firewalls
By default DNSSEC uses the next secure (NSEC) resource record “to provide authenticated denial of existence for DNS data”, RFC 4034. This feature creates a complete chain of all resource records of a complete zone. While it has its usage to prove that no entry exists between two other entries, it can be used to … Continue reading DNSSEC with NSEC3
This is really cool. After DNSSEC is used to sign a complete zone, SSH connections can be authenticated via checking the SSH fingerprint against the SSHFP resource record on the DNS server. With this way, administrators will never get the well-known “The authenticity of host ‘xyz’ can’t be established.” message again. Here we go:
This is a basic tutorial on how to install BIND, the Berkeley Internet Name Domain server, on a Ubuntu server in order to run it as an authoritative DNS server. It differs from other tutorials because I am using three servers (one as a hidden primary and two secondaries as the publicly accessible ones), as … Continue reading Basic BIND Installation
This blog post is a list of common troubleshooting commands I am using on the FortiGate CLI. It is not complete nor very detailled, but provides the basic commands for troubleshooting network related issues that are not resolvable via the GUI. I am not focused on too many memory, process, kernel, etc. details. These must … Continue reading CLI Commands for Troubleshooting FortiGate Firewalls
While reading the OSPF chapter in the Cisco CCNP ROUTE learning guide, I was interested in how to visualize an OSPF area. Since every router in the same area has a complete view of all routers and networks, it should be easy to draw a map. So, I searched through the web for this kind … Continue reading OSPF Visualizer
Roundcube is an email webclient which is easy and intuitive to use. I am using it for my private mails, connecting via IMAP and SMTP to my hoster. One of the great advantages is the “flag” option which is synchronized via IMAP to my Apple devices. Following is a step-by-step installation guide for Roundcube plus … Continue reading Roundcube Installation Guide