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VyOS is quite interesting OS. It’s a open source Linux based network operating system based on Vyatta. It’s config style seems bit like JunOS in terms of hierarchy and set/edit/delete options while editing configuration.  

**Can one use it in a small ISP or a Corporate LAN setup? 

Someone asked me recently if we can have complete open source based router in smaller network doing basic stuff. Not with not-so-streamlined Linux shell but networking OS where network engineers favorite tool “?” works in CLI with options. Let’s take a possible case with bunch of routers, a server with speedtest-mini running on it and end desktop with Ubuntu-desktop on it along with VyOS based router. Goal here is to have basic features to work (to start with!). I am conducting this test and setup on the VM infrastructure at home but that should have zero impact/configuration of network devices and hence not going to focus on that part. All devices including server, desktop and router are pretty much running on virtual machines or KVM containers.     To configure and test:

So last month I had a wonderful trip to Bangladesh for bdNOG. This is bit delayed.  

Some thoughts on infrastructure

1. In terms of infrastructure - roads & traffic, power, quality of builds - it seemed like India in 2000’s.
2. Specifically roads and traffic was bit terrible and even as an Indian (who manages to drive in Indian traffic!) I still got scared out of traffic in Dhaka. Speeds, roughness and overtaking is pretty high.
3. There was no Uber and app based services are still pretty low. It was mostly usual “yellow taxi” which one had to call. (And it was expensive by local standards).
4. There was excessive, just excessive amounts of overhead cabling in Dhaka and most of key city areas. It’s worth noting that there is way more overhead fiber than India. I guess most of it was running “active ethernet” based solutions (not a PON).  Most was just via media converters on both ends.
5. I got 30Mbps speeds in cheap budget hotel in Dhaka which was more higher then what I have ever seen in India! (Speedtest here)
6. Bangladesh currently is connected to outside world via SEA-ME-WE4 (landing at Cox’s Bazaar) and a terrestrial cable route via Kolkata.
7. Overall network connectivity with India is decent since many large Bangladeshi networks buy transit from Tata Communications (AS6453) and Airtel (AS9498). So mostly there’s direct path to India and if not direct then via Singapore which added bit of latency but was not as bad as India-China routes.
8. Bangladesh has a real & functional internet exchange :)

An interesting promo video on Internet peering and why it is important in context of Africa by Internet Society.

This week I presented in bdNOG 4 on “Misused top ASNs”. It was a study we at Hurricane Electric did to see how many times AS1, AS2 and AS3 appeared in global routing table between 2010 and 2015. This highlights cases where AS1, AS2 or AS3 appeared as a result of wrong prepend.  

My presentation is embedded below:

Overall bdNOG 4 had been a great experience. It’s good to see a nice NOG community actively sharing technical know-how, sharing experiences, and much more. I must say that is something I greatly miss in India. More on bdNOG conference later on.

    Sitting at Kolkata airport. Noticed the usual “Free Wifi in the area!” message and connected to Tata Docomo Free wifi. Performance was quite poor.   Two key issues with wifi:

1. Using of only 2.4Ghz (802.11b/g/n with 20Mhz channel). No AP with 5Ghz box. (Click here to view scanner data). Should have been 5Ghz
2. Entire traffic is getting tunnel via Mumbai i.e West India (while I am sitting on Eastern side). Adding up to latency and performance significantly.

Here are some of traces to random locations: