Posts by lennys (68)

lennys July 19, 2024

DNS issues...resolved?

So today I woke up to a couple of emails from my work's abuse notification system that said two of the IP addresses in use in my little network were used in a DNS amplification attack. Right away I went into troubleshooting mode. I had to research the issue online after finding that both IP addresses were used as gateways IPs on my Mikrotik router, and after disabling them both and reading a bunch of stuff I was able to figure out what to do. I found a few posts on a Mikrotik forum that showed how to setup firewall rules to block outside DNS traffic, so I (carefully) put those rules in place, then re-enabled both IP addresses. I think I got the issue resolved now, but it had me worried for a few hours. I checked it using a site I found online that had a tool for checking these things, and both IP addresses passed the test, so I think I got it resolved. One of my main concerns since I setup this network of servers, routers and switches is the possibility of them being hacked somehow, so today was a trigger for me. I have things setup securely as far as I know and I haven't had any issues prior to today so my fears might be unjustified, but being that I work in IT I have to be mindful of security issues and how they could affect my gear. There's enough bad actors on the internet already, I don't want to add to their arsenal. Other than that it's been another slow morning at work. I got some help installing a new SSL certificate for a customer, and I've sent a few emails out. I just had to check a server for a customer who called in - I called him back and left a voicemail, so we'll see if anything comes of that. I worked through another chapter in DataCamp, this one about web scraping. I did this set of lessons last week, but now I'm going over them again. I'm going to spend some time reading my Python book, and we'll see what else the day brings.

lennys July 14, 2024

Learning

It's another quiet Sunday morning at work. I just finished another set of DataCamp lessons, and started a new section about web scraping. It hasn't covered much Python so far, just HTML and other things, most of which I already know. For the last couple of weeks I've been doing a chapter a day, which has worked out pretty well. However today I had some extra time on my hands, so I quickly worked through 3 chapters altogether: the last chapter in the "Developing Python Packages" lessons, and the first two chapters about web scraping. I'm leaving the rest of the web scraping stuff for tomorrow. I did go to Half Moon Bay last Tuesday (my weekend), but I didn't get a chance to go for a walk in the Murray Ranch park like I wanted because the road to it was closed. There was a sign that said the road was damaged due to a flood or something, so I guess that's a no-go for the time being. I did go for a walk on the beach and watched the waves roll in for a while, which was good. Afterward I got some food from a burger joint there that I like, and drove home early. Highway 92 was closed so I had to go a different route to get there, this time along the coast on Highway 1. It was foggy so I wasn't able to see much, but I could tell on a good day it would be a beautiful drive. I'm looking forward to trying it again with better weather. I was on the phone yesterday for a couple of hours trying to help a customer troubleshoot a BGP issue they had. They had one route that wasn't propagated correctly for a /16 IP block because their customer had made some last-minute changes outside of the normal time window, so it turned out that they had to wait for those changes to spread out across the internet which took several hours. I had to get with two engineers to get it sorted out. It got a little frustrating at times being on the phone for so long, but in the end we were able to give them a satisfactory explanation (I think) of why things weren't working yet. I learned a little bit about how BGP works too, so it was all good in the end. I still have those two switches sitting in my cabinet at work, I might try to install them this coming weekend (Tuesday - Wednesday). I also have that bottom toolbox sitting at home waiting to go to the sandblaster. I don't know if I'll get to either of those things this weekend, we'll have to wait and see. I have a couple of meetings with the VA to deal with first, so my free time is limited. I had a CAT scan run about two weeks ago that I still need to get the results about, so I've got to make a doctor appointment soon. I had blood work done last month, got the results back and found that (as far as I know) I'm in good general health so I'm not anticipating any bad news, but you never know with these things. I need to call my brother and catch up on things. We haven't spoken since last Christmas, so it's overdue. The last I heard he was still having disagreements with his ex-wife about taking care of their kids, so there's some drama going on there. I hope he's doing okay. I visited them last year for Thanksgiving, and back then they had a pretty good deal going there, a nice stable life. Hopefully that's still the case. I'll bet he's still got a garage full of disassembled cars and motorcycles he's working on, that's a big hobby for him. I like to help him with that stuff when I'm there.

lennys July 07, 2024

Cool winds blow...

Well, I broke down and set up the portable air conditioner I had in storage. It's sitting in my bedroom right now, turned off because I'm at work. I had to go get a plank of lumber from Home Depot, cut two holes in it for the vent ducts, and mount it in the bedroom window. I take the plank out of the window when I'm not home. Eventually I'm going to figure out a way to permanently mount it in the window, but for now this is good enough. I've had the AC running at night for the last 3 nights, and I've slept better than I have in a really long time. Last night I actually slept through the whole night without waking up even once, which hasn't happened in so long that I don't remember. I should have done this a long time ago. The Python work is going well. I spent about 2 hours this morning working through some Git tutorials on DataCamp.com, which was a good refresher. I'd used Git and GitHub before for past projects so I was already familiar with most of it, but it was still good practice. I need as much practice as I can get with this stuff. In my Introducing Python book, I made it to chapter 11 so far, which is only about one third of the way through it all. I should have bought this book a long time ago, it's helping a lot in my understanding of things. I'm still not writing spontaneous code like I would like, but I do feel like I'm getting somewhere. That's a nice change from the past with some of the other Python books I've worked through. Not much else is going on at the moment. It's a quiet Sunday morning at work, and I expect it'll be like this for most of the day. I'm trying to decide what I'm going to do with myself for this coming weekend. I was thinking of driving to Half Moon Bay, but I have two switches sitting in my cabinet at work that I need to rack and configure. Plus my truck is due for an oil change, so I'm not sure what I'll be doing yet. Half Moon Bay may have to wait another week or two.

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