July 2000 - Test - lists.nanog.org

Re: RBL-type BGP service for known rogue networks?
by Sean Donelan 10 Jul '00

10 Jul '00

On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Dan Hollis wrote: > tin.it obviously fits all 3 criteria and thus would be blackholed. it > might not get them to change their behaviour, but at least people who > subscribe to the blackhole list wouldnt be rooted by tin.it customers While this might seem to be a belt and suspenders approach, anyone who cares about their machines being rooted spends their time securing their machines. After securing your machines, RBL'ing tin.it is just extra work. On the other hand, RBLing tin.it is of limited prophylactic value since, if you haven't secured your machines, the script kiddies will just root your machine from elsewhere.

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RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices
by Karyn Ulriksen 10 Jul '00

10 Jul '00

>I seem to remember the folks over at Andover being disgusted with the >Arrowpoint boxes after a recent denial-of-service attack. You might try >searching on Slashdot; I think they posted a pretty fair criticism of the >boxes. Yeah, Jeremy Noetzelman, over at People dug up the links and I read through them. http://slashdot.org/articles/00/05/17/1318233.shtml and http://slashdot.org/articles/00/05/18/1427203.shtml It looks like they had to jump to the CS800 to get stability after the CS100's died. I looked at doing this, but it looked like I would end up with a 16u (size?) chassis serving 6 to 8 servers with no where to move up. Try and sell *that* to a Board of Directors... Karyn

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RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices
by Karyn Ulriksen 10 Jul '00

10 Jul '00

The CS800 chassis is a pretty big box, about the size of a Cisco 7507. Last I checked it had 4x RAM capability of the CS100 (and 2x of the CS150). Since the major source of my woes appeared to be memory related, it didn't look like a good jump $-wise and u-wise (I'm guessing at 16u ?) to serve the same number of devices. As I remember, it's a 10 slot chassis - two for the management modules. How many slots do you have populated on your chassis? Are they all GigE or 10/100s or a mix? Karyn -----Original Message----- From: Jeremy Noetzelman [mailto:jjn@peoplelink.com] Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 5:40 PM To: Karyn Ulriksen Subject: RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices Never saw any problems like that, but the key there is that you were running on a -100 and not an -800 ... the arrowpoint guys were very candid with me that there were some issues with the -100 ... but since the -100 is far too small for the amount of data I push, I didn't even consider it. Incidentally, the articles Larry was referring to can be found at: http://slashdot.org/articles/00/05/17/1318233.shtml and http://slashdot.org/articles/00/05/18/1427203.shtml J --- Jeremy Noetzelman Director of Network Operations PeopleLink -----Original Message----- From: Karyn Ulriksen [mailto:kulriksen@publichost.com] Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 5:37 PM To: 'Jeremy Noetzelman' Cc: 'nanog(a)merit.edu'; 'lb-l(a)vegan.net' Subject: RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices What version of code were you running on those Arrowpoints? I'm starting to wonder if I didn't just get fed some bad hardware. I ran one of the leading software publisher's FTP servers on our CS100 and it got real ugly. I had the techs and engineers at Arrowpoint go over the configuration from top to bottom. It would hit around 250 connections, crash, and reboot. It wouldn't reactivate the service until after we did a cold reboot. Did you ever see anything like that? The issue persisted from their Version 2 code thru Version 3. Karyn -----Original Message----- From: Jeremy Noetzelman [mailto:jjn@peoplelink.com] Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 5:22 PM To: Karyn Ulriksen Subject: RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices See inline responses --- Jeremy Noetzelman Director of Network Operations PeopleLink -----Original Message----- From: Karyn Ulriksen [mailto:kulriksen@publichost.com] Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 5:12 PM To: 'Jeremy Noetzelman' Cc: 'nanog(a)merit.edu'; 'lb-l(a)vegan.net' Subject: RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices I keep getting these vague responses. But, I _really_ interested in what was done with them. I hate to ask this level of detail (and I'm not some marketing wig), but I _really_ want to know. Could you answer the following questions? How come you wouldn't consider the Cisco, Alteon or F5? ---- I've used Alteon before. Never again. A chore to configure, and atrocious performance in a live environment. F5 has a solid product, but I dislike the architecture they have for a high volume site. It's certainly something worth considering for a lower volume site that doesn't mind having a PC do the load balancing, but I prefer something ASIC based. Cisco provides similar performance to the F5 in tests I ran a while back, and is a cross between a PC and a switch ... I don't like the architecture, and the price you pay for the Cisco logo is a little steep too. ---- What tests did you run? ---- Initially we ran basic stress testing, followed by more in depth stress testing using custom built tools running on 20 Linux boxes. Once those were passed, we did the ultimate test and ran them in the production network for a short time. ---- Which services did you configure and how many rule sets? ---- We loadbalance everything from web and ftp to email, dns, instant messaging, persistant chat connections, and some other internal stuff that we do. I don't recall the exact number of rulesets, but we have about 30 virtual servers and about 150 real servers being load balanced. ---- Did you run a moderately high volume of FTP service across it (say 500 simultaneous over 2 servers)? ---- Our FTP services run on 3 boxes and we get about 300 simul with no problems. Testing the arrowpoint boxes, we were able to easily get 3000 simultaneous FTP connections across 3 servers. Hope this helps J -----Original Message----- From: Jeremy Noetzelman [mailto:jjn@peoplelink.com] Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 5:04 PM To: Karyn Ulriksen Subject: RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices I'm in the process of switching from Foundry to Arrowpoint. I wouldn't even consider Cisco, or Alteon, or F5. Foundry and Arrowpoint both make an excellent product, it came down to the GS-800 fitting my needs more precisely. I eval'd them both over a period of a couple months (and I had originally been using ServerIrons) .... decided to make the switch based on performance and scalability that the SI just can't match up to right now. J --- Jeremy Noetzelman Director of Network Operations PeopleLink -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog(a)merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Karyn Ulriksen Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 4:54 PM To: 'lb-l(a)vegan.net' Cc: 'nanog(a)merit.edu' Subject: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices I'm wondering how other ISPs are using Arrowpoint devices in their networks. They must be successfully implemented in some networks with out many gotchas, considering that Cisco bought them. After six months of testing Arrowpoint, I ended going with another LB solutions. But I can't help but wonder what others are doing with them. Have they made enough changes in their product that I should take a look at them again? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Best regards, Karyn Ulriksen Director of Network Operations PublicHost, A SiteStream Company 22 Mauchly, Suite 200 Irvine, California 92618 USA Phone: (949) 743-2000 email: kulriksen(a)publichost.com URL: http://www.publichost.com

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RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices
by Karyn Ulriksen 10 Jul '00

10 Jul '00

What version of code were you running on those Arrowpoints? I'm starting to wonder if I didn't just get fed some bad hardware. I ran one of the leading software publisher's FTP servers on our CS100 and it got real ugly. I had the techs and engineers at Arrowpoint go over the configuration from top to bottom. It would hit around 250 connections, crash, and reboot. It wouldn't reactivate the service until after we did a cold reboot. Did you ever see anything like that? The issue persisted from their Version 2 code thru Version 3. Karyn -----Original Message----- From: Jeremy Noetzelman [mailto:jjn@peoplelink.com] Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 5:22 PM To: Karyn Ulriksen Subject: RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices See inline responses --- Jeremy Noetzelman Director of Network Operations PeopleLink -----Original Message----- From: Karyn Ulriksen [mailto:kulriksen@publichost.com] Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 5:12 PM To: 'Jeremy Noetzelman' Cc: 'nanog(a)merit.edu'; 'lb-l(a)vegan.net' Subject: RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices I keep getting these vague responses. But, I _really_ interested in what was done with them. I hate to ask this level of detail (and I'm not some marketing wig), but I _really_ want to know. Could you answer the following questions? How come you wouldn't consider the Cisco, Alteon or F5? ---- I've used Alteon before. Never again. A chore to configure, and atrocious performance in a live environment. F5 has a solid product, but I dislike the architecture they have for a high volume site. It's certainly something worth considering for a lower volume site that doesn't mind having a PC do the load balancing, but I prefer something ASIC based. Cisco provides similar performance to the F5 in tests I ran a while back, and is a cross between a PC and a switch ... I don't like the architecture, and the price you pay for the Cisco logo is a little steep too. ---- What tests did you run? ---- Initially we ran basic stress testing, followed by more in depth stress testing using custom built tools running on 20 Linux boxes. Once those were passed, we did the ultimate test and ran them in the production network for a short time. ---- Which services did you configure and how many rule sets? ---- We loadbalance everything from web and ftp to email, dns, instant messaging, persistant chat connections, and some other internal stuff that we do. I don't recall the exact number of rulesets, but we have about 30 virtual servers and about 150 real servers being load balanced. ---- Did you run a moderately high volume of FTP service across it (say 500 simultaneous over 2 servers)? ---- Our FTP services run on 3 boxes and we get about 300 simul with no problems. Testing the arrowpoint boxes, we were able to easily get 3000 simultaneous FTP connections across 3 servers. Hope this helps J -----Original Message----- From: Jeremy Noetzelman [mailto:jjn@peoplelink.com] Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 5:04 PM To: Karyn Ulriksen Subject: RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices I'm in the process of switching from Foundry to Arrowpoint. I wouldn't even consider Cisco, or Alteon, or F5. Foundry and Arrowpoint both make an excellent product, it came down to the GS-800 fitting my needs more precisely. I eval'd them both over a period of a couple months (and I had originally been using ServerIrons) .... decided to make the switch based on performance and scalability that the SI just can't match up to right now. J --- Jeremy Noetzelman Director of Network Operations PeopleLink -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog(a)merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Karyn Ulriksen Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 4:54 PM To: 'lb-l(a)vegan.net' Cc: 'nanog(a)merit.edu' Subject: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices I'm wondering how other ISPs are using Arrowpoint devices in their networks. They must be successfully implemented in some networks with out many gotchas, considering that Cisco bought them. After six months of testing Arrowpoint, I ended going with another LB solutions. But I can't help but wonder what others are doing with them. Have they made enough changes in their product that I should take a look at them again? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Best regards, Karyn Ulriksen Director of Network Operations PublicHost, A SiteStream Company 22 Mauchly, Suite 200 Irvine, California 92618 USA Phone: (949) 743-2000 email: kulriksen(a)publichost.com URL: http://www.publichost.com

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Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices
by Karyn Ulriksen 10 Jul '00

10 Jul '00

I'm wondering how other ISPs are using Arrowpoint devices in their networks. They must be successfully implemented in some networks with out many gotchas, considering that Cisco bought them. After six months of testing Arrowpoint, I ended going with another LB solutions. But I can't help but wonder what others are doing with them. Have they made enough changes in their product that I should take a look at them again? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Best regards, Karyn Ulriksen Director of Network Operations PublicHost, A SiteStream Company 22 Mauchly, Suite 200 Irvine, California 92618 USA Phone: (949) 743-2000 email: kulriksen(a)publichost.com URL: http://www.publichost.com

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RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices
by Karyn Ulriksen 10 Jul '00

10 Jul '00

Thanx Larry. I'll see if I can track it down and also look up some people I know at Exodus who might have worked with them. I remember seeing the blurb in Network World about Exodus running them somewhere in their net and I think I read that Time Warner put them in use somewhere on their cable modem (Roadrunner) network. I wonder where they used them? -----Original Message----- From: Larry Snyder [mailto:larrys@lexis-nexis.com] Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 5:24 PM To: kulriksen(a)publichost.com Subject: RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices It appears to have fallen off the end of the world, but there was an article on /. about their move to exodus hosting and arrowpoint l/b, along with a description of a dos attack on them. They use an 800 (or at least they did at the time). The initial 100 didn't handle the attack well, but the 800 did, IIRC. Sorry I can't point you to the article. -ls- Karyn Ulriksen <kulriksen(a)publichost.com> wrote: > > I keep getting these vague responses. But, I _really_ interested in what > was done with them. > > I hate to ask this level of detail (and I'm not some marketing wig), but I > _really_ want to know. Could you answer the following questions? > > How come you wouldn't consider the Cisco, Alteon or F5? > What tests did you run? > Which services did you configure and how many rule sets? > Did you run a moderately high volume of FTP service across it (say 500 > simultaneous over 2 servers)? > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jeremy Noetzelman [mailto:jjn@peoplelink.com] > Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 5:04 PM > To: Karyn Ulriksen > Subject: RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices > > > I'm in the process of switching from Foundry to Arrowpoint. > > I wouldn't even consider Cisco, or Alteon, or F5. > > Foundry and Arrowpoint both make an excellent product, it came > down to the GS-800 fitting my needs more precisely. I eval'd them > both over a period of a couple months (and I had originally been using > ServerIrons) .... decided to make the switch based on performance > and scalability that the SI just can't match up to right now. > > J > > > --- > Jeremy Noetzelman > Director of Network Operations > PeopleLink > > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-nanog(a)merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of > Karyn Ulriksen > Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 4:54 PM > To: 'lb-l(a)vegan.net' > Cc: 'nanog(a)merit.edu' > Subject: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices > > > > I'm wondering how other ISPs are using Arrowpoint devices in their networks. > They must be successfully implemented in some networks with out many > gotchas, considering that Cisco bought them. After six months of testing > Arrowpoint, I ended going with another LB solutions. But I can't help but > wonder what others are doing with them. Have they made enough changes in > their product that I should take a look at them again? > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Best regards, > > Karyn Ulriksen > Director of Network Operations > PublicHost, A SiteStream Company > 22 Mauchly, Suite 200 > Irvine, California 92618 USA > Phone: (949) 743-2000 > email: kulriksen(a)publichost.com > URL: http://www.publichost.com >

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RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices
by Karyn Ulriksen 10 Jul '00

10 Jul '00

I keep getting these vague responses. But, I _really_ interested in what was done with them. I hate to ask this level of detail (and I'm not some marketing wig), but I _really_ want to know. Could you answer the following questions? How come you wouldn't consider the Cisco, Alteon or F5? What tests did you run? Which services did you configure and how many rule sets? Did you run a moderately high volume of FTP service across it (say 500 simultaneous over 2 servers)? -----Original Message----- From: Jeremy Noetzelman [mailto:jjn@peoplelink.com] Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 5:04 PM To: Karyn Ulriksen Subject: RE: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices I'm in the process of switching from Foundry to Arrowpoint. I wouldn't even consider Cisco, or Alteon, or F5. Foundry and Arrowpoint both make an excellent product, it came down to the GS-800 fitting my needs more precisely. I eval'd them both over a period of a couple months (and I had originally been using ServerIrons) .... decided to make the switch based on performance and scalability that the SI just can't match up to right now. J --- Jeremy Noetzelman Director of Network Operations PeopleLink -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog(a)merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Karyn Ulriksen Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 4:54 PM To: 'lb-l(a)vegan.net' Cc: 'nanog(a)merit.edu' Subject: Arrowpoint Load Balancing Devices I'm wondering how other ISPs are using Arrowpoint devices in their networks. They must be successfully implemented in some networks with out many gotchas, considering that Cisco bought them. After six months of testing Arrowpoint, I ended going with another LB solutions. But I can't help but wonder what others are doing with them. Have they made enough changes in their product that I should take a look at them again? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Best regards, Karyn Ulriksen Director of Network Operations PublicHost, A SiteStream Company 22 Mauchly, Suite 200 Irvine, California 92618 USA Phone: (949) 743-2000 email: kulriksen(a)publichost.com URL: http://www.publichost.com

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Re: Lurking lawyers
by Sean Donelan 10 Jul '00

10 Jul '00

On Sat, 08 July 2000, Steve Sobol wrote: > Ok. Would it be more accurate to say that no attorneys or judges > actively participate in this group? All of the people I see posting > are techies. The Internet is still rather new. We're just now seeing the first generation of network operators who grew up wanting to be network operators. Almost all of us old foggies had other careers before stumbling into this Internet thing. Yes, there are people who are, or were, members of the bar actively participate on occasion. Some of my best friends are lawyers :-) But, unless you've paid for it, their opinions on this list aren't worth any more than anyone else's. Remember AGIS?

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RE: LoadBalancing products: Foundry ServerIron
by Sutantyo, Danny 10 Jul '00

10 Jul '00

Someone from the maker of BIND company for DNS came here, and he told us that he's using OSPF to load balance the server, I don't know how he did it. Unless he's using the small routers to do it for servers. -----Original Message----- From: tony bourke [mailto:tony@vegan.net] Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 9:12 AM To: Sutantyo, Danny Cc: lb-l(a)vegan.net; nanog(a)merit.edu Subject: RE: LoadBalancing products: Foundry ServerIron Hi Danny, I'm not sure what you mean. Are you talking about load balancing routers? Or load balancing output from load balancers? Tony On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Sutantyo, Danny wrote: > > How about load balancing on the router? Any idea? I heard someone is using > ospf method to load balance? > > > -----Original Message----- > From: tony bourke [mailto:tony@vegan.net] > Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 8:57 AM > To: Roeland M.J. Meyer > Cc: 'Sutantyo, Danny'; lb-l(a)vegan.net; nanog(a)merit.edu > Subject: RE: LoadBalancing products: Foundry ServerIron > > > True, thats why I don't particularly like LocalDirectors. Most of the > other load balancing solutions do offer GigE, however. I prefer LB over > clustering as it gives you more flexibility in what you use as far as your > platform. Microsoft's clustering software limits you to microsoft, while > I'm not sure if resonate will let you do both UNIX and Windows. > > The implementation is alot simpler as well, the LB is bascially acting as > a glorified router in most cases, so its a very logical and elegant > solutions. Clustering, at least in my experience, tends to be more > combersome and complex to setup. > > But that is just my humble opinion. > > LB vs Clustering sounds like a possible religeous debate ;) > > Tony > > On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote: > > > > > Yeah, so why bother? As long as load balancers don't have GigE > > ports, I can't use them and have to use something like Resonate. > > Besides, LBs don't do site-site load balancing. If you want to do > > distributed load sharing then there really isn't much choice. > > Personally, I don't see benefits of LBs that proper clustering > > wont give you. Component clusters work well, much better than > > simple LB will give you. > > > > > From: tony bourke: Friday, July 07, 2000 8:01 AM > > > > > > you can do EtherChannel for more than 100 Mbps, but we all > > > know how well > > > that works. > > > > > > Tony > > > > > > On Fri, 7 Jul > > > 2000, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > The last time I looked at one, I couldn't get it in > > > > GigE...100baseTX only. Ergo, I couldn't run it on my > > backbone. > > > > > > > > > Sutantyo, Danny: Thursday, July 06, 2000 8:37 AM > > > > > > > > > > How about Local Director? > > > > > > > > > > From: Richard Colella: Thursday, July 06, 2000 5:38 AM > > > > > > > > > > Products are also available from Alteon, Cisco (Distributed > > > > > Director) and Resonate. Last time I looked, none of these > > > > > products does everything one wants, IMHO, but the set union > > > > > of features comes pretty close. > > > > > > -------------- -- ---- ---- --- - - - - - -- - - - - - - > Tony Bourke tony(a)vegan.net > > > > -------------- -- ---- ---- --- - - - - - -- - - - - - - Tony Bourke tony(a)vegan.net

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bad idea?
by Jeremiah Kristal 10 Jul '00

10 Jul '00

Given a small, globally routable netblock to be used for front-end web servers, and a strong aversion for using DNS for any type of load balancing, would it be reasonable to build two identical servers farms with the same public IP addresses and rely on the BGP sessions with the hosing providers to remove one advertisement in the event of a problem? I've been looking at ways to ensure that the webservers are always available, short of building a network connecting hosting facilities. Jeremiah being a customer stinks

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