Thursday, December 11, 2003
How to Saturate a gigE network
0) Assume your class 10/8 network is happy .1) Have a single host infected with a windows worm, spewing out 32 million packets at a time across the wire, infecting everything it finds.
2) Install windows XP on a new vmware virtual machine, and start downloading the security updates from Microsoft. Before you finish downloading the new machine is already infected, and also spewing out 32 million packets at a time.
3) Repeat step 2 as required until you notice that
A) Your switch is lit up solid red
B) There's smoke coming from the wall jack
C) Your security updates take utterly forever to install.
When this sort of thing happens it reminds me why living in a monoculture can wipe out a species.
I know a guy that once took a baseball bat into the server rooms of a Microsoft colocation facility.
Last night, at 3AM, I know just how he felt. ¶ 3:12 PM
