Setting up a Solid NLB Cluster Purpose                 I often run across failing NLB clusters, and administrator with many questions. Like with many technologies, I find NLB to best be kept simple, it does not require some grand configuration, and whitepapers only intending to explain all you options, often mislead you into configuring things wrong, or more detailed than is needed. In this article, I intend to shar... [More]

Tackling IPSEC Purpose                 IPSEC is one of the most useful and sometimes most confusing protocols in modern technology. It seems that to understand IPSEC and its appliance you have to teach you mind to think in a different way than it is used to. Where normally we just look at making a network connection as a ping, with IPSEC we really have to delve into Winsocks and the direction of network packets with... [More]

                Many times I have found it needful to be able to find what adapters are loaded on a server, whether they are not showing up in device manager, I wanted to validate whether network teaming was enabled, I wanted to see if some firewall miniport driver was installed, I wanted to see if the local Antivirus added anything, or any other reason. Here are some steps I have found helpful when validating what Networ... [More]

FtBP: End-to-End, B-to-A Part 8/8                   Last time we talked about how a network packet changes through a NAT device, and we finished off the transit of our network packet to Computer B. Today we will follow a network packet from Computer B back to Computer A. Here is the Diagram we will work with:                   ... [More]

FtBP: NAT and PAT Part 7/8                   Last time we talked about how a network packet transverses a VPN tunnel, today we will discuss how a NAT device works. Here is where we left off last time with our network packet:                 L2-[Source MAC: 04-04-04-04-04-04 | Destination MAC: 05-05-05-05-05-05]     ... [More]

FtBP: VPN Tunnels Part 6/8                   Last time we talked about how a firewall will handle a network packet, today we will discuss how a packet gets across a VPN Tunnel. Here is where we left off last time with our network packet:                 L2-[Source MAC: 04-04-04-04-04-04 | Destination MAC: 05-05-05-05-05-05]  &n... [More]

FtBP: Firewalls Part 5/8                   Last time we talked about how a router will direct a network packet, today we will discuss how a packet gets assessed by a network firewall in determining whether to forward the traffic, or squash it. Here is where we left off last time with our network packet:                   L2-[Sour... [More]