Working on updating Networking for Systems Administrators. The gentle “yes you need IPv6” paragraph in the first edition is getting an update to something a little more… ranty.

Commercial operating systems now default to IPv6, falling back to IPv4 only if IPv6 is unavailable. New networks, especially phone networks, are often IPv6-only. Much of the southern hemisphere, much of Asia, and much of the human race? IPv6-only. Their IPv4 connectivity is a kludge of proxies, carrier-grade NAT, 464xlat, and a melange of workarounds that I’d call black magic if the Evil Wizards Union wouldn’t sue me for slander. These ramshackle measures require constant maintenance and adjustment. Such network operators are desperately maintaining their trickery until the day the majority of traffic uses IPv6 and they can dismiss IPv4-only sites as outmoded oddities.

When is that coming? We don’t know exactly, but Google reports that 45% of all their Internet traffic is IPv6.

My infrastructure is all IPv6, except for my home ISP, where I’ve chosen robust IPv4-only service over “dual stack with nine fives uptime.” But 13 more print sponsors on this book and I have to do another challenge coin.

Here’s a chunk from the new edition of Networking for Systems Administrators.

Through your career, people have repeatedly blamed “the firewall.” The word firewall dates from the 1980s, when the concept of network-level access control was both exotic and bizarre. In the last fifty years, access controls have become broader and more complex. Some controls remained in the devices arbitrarily labeled “firewalls,” while others migrated to routers and switches and other devices. What does the word “firewall” mean today?

Like the words “computer” and “security,” it means nothing. Nothing.

Every layer of the network supports access controls. Any of these controls might trouble you. Proxies, network address translation (NAT, see Chapter 3) devices, packet filters (Chapter 5), protocol content filters, all of these can reasonably be called “firewalls.” Your network might have a device that gets called “the firewall,” but any organization’s network has multiple access controls.

The truth is, if I was willing to just slam out a chapter on TLS and X.509, and cut the stuff on 10/100 Ethernet, I’d have a first draft of this book by next week. But nooo, I have to be all stupid and ethical and painstakingly go through the entire book to be sure it’s the best, most up-to-date work I can create. You could support me by sponsoring the book. 16 more print sponsors and I do another challenge coin.

Here’s a chunk from the new edition of Networking for Systems Administrators.

Similarly, some vendors use the word VLAN. Others talk about tagging or VLAN tagging. To create a VLAN, devices add a tag to an Ethernet frame. It’s all the same thing

Most network administrators use the language of their preferred vendor. If your company only uses network gear from company X, it almost certainly uses that company’s terminology. Those of us who have been around for a long time either adopt our organization’s language or, worse, use all of these terms interchangeably. If I’m your network admin, I might tell you that I’ve configured a trunk to your server. Or that I’m sending you some tagged VLANs. Or that I’ve configured a trunk on your trunk, at which point you’re allowed to proceed directly to hard liquor.

If you’re in doubt, ask your network administrator if this is the trunk with tagged VLANs or the trunk with multiple cables. Ignore the flinch, she can’t help it.

You can sponsor N4SA2e. And, in case you missed it, Dear Abyss is finally live on Kickstarter.

Dear Abyss is ready to launch, so I’m making new words. It’s another column.

If you insist on proceeding, though, if you demand you be allowed to weave yourself a chrysalis and transform into a kernel developer like a panic-prone memory-dumping file-corrupting butterfly, immediately separate your dreams from your goals. A goal is something actionable that is completely within your control to achieve. Accomplishing a dream requires other people intervene on your behalf. Going out for a dinner date with that attractive person? Totally a dream. Asking that attractive person out for a dinner date, and when they remind you that you are inherently unloveable leaving them the heck alone instead of stalking them like the creepy hero of a so-called “romance?” An absolutely achievable goal!

You cannot control other people. Work on goals. Never on dreams.

I babble a whole bunch about dreams versus goals in Domesticate Your Badgers. And seriously, if they turn you down leave them the hell alone.

Life has been a bit chaotic this last couple weeks, and fulfilling the last 5% of the Run Your Own Mail Server Kickstarter has soaked up my time. I’m just getting to finishing the copyedits on Dear Abyss so I can launch the bloody Kickstarter. Here’s a snippet from the Introduction.

Here’s the other problem with an advice column. It needs glue.

Saying “I’ll write about FreeBSD stuff” isn’t enough. People don’t beseech Dear Abby for solutions. They want her soothing voice. Her calmness. Her gentle declarations that “yes, you have a problem” or “have you considered complying with conservative societal norms?” If they wanted detailed, thoughtful discussion of their petty problems they’d write Captain Awkward or Dear Prudence. Each columnist has their own voice, their own attitudes, beliefs and mission. Columnists have goals. And seriously, a Unix letters column? No system administration advice I could offer would survive thirty seconds exposure to the sandblaster of reality.

If you look at the first few columns, you’ll see I gave it my best shot. My model was in an unstable solar orbit, however, and starting to skip off the heliosphere.

This story has an unhappy ending. I figured out how to keep writing it.