Administrating

Hey everyone! This is a follow-up article on a local Cisco Russia DevNet Marathon online event I attended in May 2020. It was a series of educational webinars on network automation followed by daily challenges based on the discussed topics.
On a final day, the participants were challenged to automate a topology analysis and visualization of an arbitrary network segment and, optionally, track and visualize the changes.

The task was definitely not trivial and not widely covered in public blog posts. In this article, I would like to break down my own solution that finally took first place and describe the selected toolset and considerations.

Let's get started.

Major players in the Chinese app market are joining forces to take on the almighty Google Play store. Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo are reported to launch the Global Developer Service Alliance (GDSA), a platform allowing Android developers to publish their apps in the partnering stores from one upload.

The GDSA is expected to launch in nine countries—including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Spain, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam—although paid app support may vary across the regions. Canalys’ Nicole Peng explains the wide reach of this alliance:

By forming this alliance each company will be looking to leverage the others’ advantages in different regions, with Xiaomi’s strong user base in India, Vivo and Oppo in Southeast Asia, and Huawei in Europe. 

Intro

Every Linux professional write scripts. Someеimes light, linear. Sometimes complex script with functions and libs(yes, you can write your bash-library for use in other scripts).

But some of the scripts need a configuration file to work. For instance, I wrote a script that builds the ubuntu image for pxe, and I need to change the build process without build-script changes. The best way to resolve this task is to add configuration files.

In the last part we discussed evolution of the interrupt delivery process from the devices in the x86 system (PIC → APIC → MSI), general theory, and all the necessary terminology.

In this practical part we will look at how to roll back to the use of obsolete methods of interrupt delivery in Linux, and in particular we will look at Linux kernel boot options:

• pci=nomsi
• noapic
• nolapic

Also we will look at the order in which the OS looks for interrupt routing tables (ACPI/MPtable/$PIR) and what the impact is from the following boot options:

• pci=noacpi
• acpi=noirq
• acpi=off

You've probably used some combination of these options when one of the devices in your system hasn't worked correctly because of an interrupt problem. We'll go through these options and find out what they do and how they change the kernel '/proc/interrupts' interface output.

The basics of porting

Originally, Buildroot offers a limited number of packages. It makes sense — there is everything you need, but any other packages can be added.

To add a package, create 2 description files, an optional checksum file, and add a link to the package in the general package list. There are hooks at different stages of the build. At the same time, Buildroot can recognize the needed type of packages:

• Batch jobs.
• Workloads that can sustain and/or recover from interruptions.
• Development and test.
• Stateless applications that can use Spot Virtual Machines to scale out, opportunistically saving cost.
• Short-lived jobs which can easily be run again if the Virtual Machine is evicted.

After hitting the keyboard buttons for the past 20 minutes, as if he was typing for his life, ghostinushanka turns to me with a half-mad look in his eyes and a sly smile, “Dude, I think I got it.

Look at this” — as he points to one of the characters on screen — “I bet my red hat that if we add what I’ve just sent you here” — as he points to another place in the code — “there will be no error anymore.”
Slightly puzzled and tired I modify the sed expression we’ve been figuring out for some time now, save the file and run systemctl varnish reload. Error message gone…

“Those emails I’ve exchanged with the candidate,” my colleague continues, as his smile changes to a wide and genuine grin, “It suddenly struck me that this is the very same exact problem!”

For people familiar with the term DPI (Deep Packet Inspection), it often carries an unpleasant association: blocking, regulators, censorship, tightening controls. In reality, DPI is simply the name of a technology whose essence lies in the deep analysis of network traffic. Deep traffic analysis involves identifying protocols, extracting the most significant fields and metadata, classifying internet services, and analyzing the nature of network flows. I will explain how such solutions work in this article.

Automatic data scraping (parsing) has become an essential practice for developers, analysts, and automation specialists. It is used to extract massive amounts of information from websites—from competitors’ prices and reviews to social media content. To achieve this, numerous “scrapers” have been developed—libraries, frameworks, and cloud services that enable programmatic extraction of web data. Some solutions are designed for rapid parsing of static pages, others for bypassing complex JavaScript navigation, and yet others for retrieving data via APIs.

In this article, I will review the top scraping tools—both open source libraries and commercial SaaS/API services—and compare them according to key metrics: • Speed and scalability; • Ability to bypass anti-bot protections; • Proxy support and CAPTCHA recognition; • Quality of documentation; • Availability of APIs and other important features.

Have you ever struggled to turn business ideas into a product? Or tried to understand the way another team works?

If you have, you know how exhausting it can be. Different ways of thinking –business, analysis, and engineering – don’t always fit together easily.

This article blends a simple story with engineering tools to show how creativity and structure can work together. Using characters like The King, The Troll, and The Prince, it explores how storytelling can help solve tough problems and make complex ideas clearer.

If you’ve ever faced a "troll" at work, this story might help you see things differently – and maybe even make the process a bit more fun.

Hello, friends

I decided to start this year with an article in the field of HIFI sound / audiophilia and this article is about sharing the results of my wireless earbud tests, which I’ve been conducting for several years since the emergence of TWS on the market. 
Sound testing is my hobby, which can be useful for others, because in everyone’s life are important bright pleasant emotions, relaxation and mental comfort, which is not always enough in the flow of turbulent events of life. And music is just the thing to bring it all in, if only for moments, or even hours, and choosing the right headphones is crucial to getting the right effect.

Testing sound is a hobby with benefits that extend beyond personal enjoyment, as its results can be valuable to others. After all, life is made brighter and more fulfilling by positive emotions, moments of relaxation, and peace of mind — things that often feel scarce in the whirlwind of modern life. Music is one of those rare things that can bring these experiences into our lives, even if just for a moment or hours at a time. Choosing the right headphones is essential to achieving that effect.

By the end of 2024, I completed testing the best wireless in-ear headphones (commonly referred to as “earbuds”) available on the market — or at least those I could find. “Best” here doesn’t necessarily mean the most expensive. It refers to the top performers in terms of sound quality. We’ve all encountered situations where lower-priced items turned out to be just as good, if not better, than their costly counterparts. That’s why my sound-quality ranking includes headphones from various price categories — from ultra-premium TWS models to more budget-friendly options.

Prerequisites:
1. Install Docker
2. Install VSCode

STEP BY STEP

1. Open VSCode that you previously installed and click on "Extensions" tab right on the menu bar, then type 'docker' to find proper extension and click "install":