blog.bcbrookman

A Networking, Linux, and Programming blog

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What Even is a Link State Anyways?

If you've stumbled on this post, chances are that you might already be familiar with OSPF and/or IS-IS as the two most common link state routing protocols in use today. Unlike traditional distance-vector routing protocols, routers running link state routing protocols populate a link state database of the entire …


Bridging the Gap with STP TCNs

Originally ratified in the IEEE 802.1D standard, spanning-tree protocol (STP) is used ubiquitously throughout enterprise networks to prevent layer 2 network loops. With STP, traffic on physically redundant paths between bridges (or switches today) is blocked to form a logical loop-free topology. It's a fundamental technology all network professional …


An Unwanted Adventure in Hard Drive Recovery

I recently migrated to a new NAS for my home network and planned to add an extra 3TB drive to the RAID array. There was only one problem: the drive had some files on it from an old computer which I wasn't sure was backed up. I was anxious to …