Linux Networking: Mastering VLAN Trunking, Bonding, and QoS for High-Performance Systems

This article explores each of these advanced networking capabilities, explaining their benefits, configurations, and practical use cases.

Having an offsite backup in your RV is great, and after a year of use, I've discovered some ways to make it even better.

How to install and minimally configure Knot to act as your home lab's local domain master and slave servers. If you were a regular viewer of the original Saturday Night Live era, you will remember the Festrunks, two lewd but naïve Czech brothers who were self-described "wild and crazy guys!" For me, Gyorg and Yortuk (plus having my binomial handed to me by tests designed by a brilliant Czech professor at the local university's high-school mathematics contests) were the extent of my knowledge of the Czech Republic.

Use the Python Netmiko module to automate switches, routers and firewalls from multiple vendors.

Who needs a custom NAS OS or a web-based GUI when command-line NAS software is so easy to configure?

Ubuntu changed networking. Embrace the YAML.

NFS clients and servers push file traffic over clear-text connections in the default configuration, which is incompatible with sensitive data. TLS can wrap this traffic, finally bringing protocol security. Before you use your cloud provider's NFS tools, review all of your NFS usage and secure it where necessary.

What better way to add a geeky touch to #vanlife than with a Linux server in your RV?

When I learned that our new sister company, Private Internet Access (PIA), was opening its source code, I immediately wanted to know the backstory, especially since privacy is the theme of this month's Linux Journal. So I contacted Andrew Lee, who founded PIA, and an interview ensued. Here it is. DS: What made you start PIA in the first place? Did you have a particular population or use case—or set of use cases—in mind?

Imre Palik tried to speed up some of Linux's networking code but was met with stubborn opposition. Essentially, he wanted networking packets to bypass the netfilter code unless absolutely necessary. Netfilter, he said, was designed for flexibility at the expense of speed. According to his tests, bypassing it could speed up the system by as much as 15%.

DPDK is a fully open-source project that operates in userspace. It's a multi-vendor and multi-architecture project, and it aims at achieving high I/O performance and reaching high packet processing rates, which are some of the most important features in the networking arena. It was created by Intel in 2010 and moved to the Linux Foundation in April 2017. This move positioned it as one of the most dominant and most important open-source Linux projects.

Networking is one of Linux's strengths and a popular topic for our subscribers. For your weekend reading, we've curated some of Linux Journal's most popular networking articles. NTPsec: a Secure, Hardened NTP Implementation by Eric S. Raymond

Reuven explores different types of multiprocessing and looks at the advantages and disadvantages of each.

In the September 2016 issue, I wrote an article called "Papa's Got a Brand New NAS" where I described how I replaced my rackmounted gear with a small, low-powered ARM device—the Odroid XU4.

Through the years, I've used all sorts of router and firewall solutions at home and at work. For home networks, I usually recommend something like DD-WRT, OpenWRT or Tomato on an off-the-shelf router. For business, my recommendations typically are something like a Ubiquiti router or a router/firewall solution like Untangled or ClearOS.

More than ever, small to mid-sized businesses demand and rely on their networks to carry out mission-critical business activities. As always, however, budgets and expertise constrain these companies from using complex managed switches to run their networks.

I've been installing a lot of POE devices recently, and the different methods for providing power over Ethernet cables can be very confusing. There are a few standards in place, and then there's a method that isn't a standard, but is widely used. 802.3af or Active PoE:

In a previous article, I explained the process for setting up Cacti, which is a great program for graphing just about anything. One of the main things I graph is my internet usage. And, it's great information to have, until there is internet activity you can't explain.

Instead of relying on servers concentrated in one large data center, the new Kubermesh is designed to simplify data-center architectures for smart factories by elegantly and cost effectively leveraging a distributed network of computing nodes spread across the enterprise.

In my "Hodge Podge" article in the October 2016 issue, I mentioned how much I love the Synology NAS I have in my server closet (Figure 1).