Master of Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know

deanwebb · August 02, 2019, 09:58:56 AM

Back in the day, around 2000 or so, I made up a certification program for MOSMWNMTK. The intro level was MOS (Master of Secrets) and offered several intermediate levels (like +Internet, that was a popular one) before the MOSMWNMTK top-level cert.

The exam itself is pretty simple to administer. You have to demonstrate that you really and truly do know more than one secret that man was not meant to know, and that you have mastered those secrets. No time limit, no essay, no multiple-guess questions. Just a straight-up life experience assessment. I think there were 5 of us at one time. We had a lot of fun with the made-up cert and with other buddies of mine adding MOS +Internet to their autosigs on techie forums, we had even more fun. Good times, man.

Fast forward to today, I'm talking with a guy about how GDPR certs are hollow and then mentioned that we could just make up certs and add them to our CVs. That made me do a Google search for MOSMWNMTK and in the results, I found a link to a DUMP SITE!!!

Yes, a dump site promising access to CBT Nugget training for MOSMWNMTK, among other things! That means my fake cert is now an industry-wide recognized standard, right? You haven't arrived until you're being pirated or the desire of a dump site patron, amirite or amirite?

icecream-guy · August 02, 2019, 10:43:23 AM

by this title, I'm guessing this is a woman thing?
cause I don't think I want to know "those" secrets.

deanwebb · August 02, 2019, 11:05:39 AM

Nope, this is stuff like my buddy John who flew modified AC-130s into hurricanes for weather observation missions... and man, did he see some wild stuff in there!

Dieselboy · August 20, 2019, 03:38:02 AM

That's great

Doubt I would qualify, I can't even log in to reddit and this is a network diagram I drew today to attach to a Confluence documentation page. BTW I did attach it with "will draw this up properly, later"

deanwebb · August 20, 2019, 09:40:21 AM

Web server in normal Steve?

OH WAIT THAT IS *STATE*

Otanx · August 20, 2019, 01:38:13 PM

I need to learn the ugly is better than none. A lot of my documents have "Will diagram at a later date". Even if it is just a whiteboard drawing at least it is something.

-Otanx

deanwebb · August 21, 2019, 09:18:32 AM

Quote from: Otanx on August 20, 2019, 01:38:13 PM
I need to learn the ugly is better than none. A lot of my documents have "Will diagram at a later date". Even if it is just a whiteboard drawing at least it is something.

-Otanx

Yep. Bad handwriting can be deciphered. No handwriting vanishes faster than dust in the wind...

Dieselboy · August 23, 2019, 01:51:22 AM

Thats where I am at... I used to have a paper notepad with scribbles on. Which is great at the time but after a few days it's not that great after multiple hot drink rings on it and no way to save online without a photo.
I was about to draw it up in draw.io from the get go, but I spent 5 minutes just trying to figure out which template to start off with.. ie it was slow going.

As you can see, I bashed out that diagram in about 5 minutes total and then I moved on.

I am still looking for the best app to do this in, though. I used snip n sketch in windows. Functionally it's great (you even have a ruler and protractor) but you cant start with any canvass (you have to take a screenshot). And if you save and reload the image, you cannot edit it.
Paint is the next best but functionally it's too complex and not designed for touch or pen.

SimonV · August 23, 2019, 03:36:07 AM

Visio is fast enough as long as you stick with basic shapes like squares, rectangles, circles, etc.

icecream-guy · August 23, 2019, 09:16:51 AM

Quote from: SimonV on August 23, 2019, 03:36:07 AM
Visio is fast enough as long as you stick with basic shapes like squares, rectangles, circles, etc.

I like the crayon stencils, make your diagram look like your kid did it

http://www.visguy.com/2011/08/16/crayon-visio-network-shapes-revisited/

Otanx · August 23, 2019, 10:05:54 AM

I use the crayon ones when I do diagrams for my cyber team. I have also looked into automated documentation stuff. I am trying to get graphviz installed on our Netbox server, and see what that looks like. Then as long as Netbox is right the diagram will be right. It also does not look super hard to write for graphviz so custom diagrams could be done as well.

-Otanx

Dieselboy · August 25, 2019, 08:57:42 PM

I spent this weekend looking at netbox - seems like a great tool to pull bits n pieces of network documentation / etc into one. My concerns around using it, is if that should go belly up / broken or if people just go to site and physically mess things around without updating netbox.

It looks like netbox is an entirely manual tool. You add the devices then on the device, add the interfaces and configure the cables to the other interfaces on other devices. I do like how if you add a device with an ip thats already in the system it will alert you to a duplicate ip.

I can see a use-case for a datacentre. You document it within netbox and it should stay accurate. For a place that changes regularly or has many hands touching it, I could see it becoming out of sync easily.

I think I need to dig around some more to see how people are using it; to see where it fits in to the mix of things here. I like the IPAM. Beats my excel sheet skills a little bit

Otanx · August 26, 2019, 09:02:42 AM

There are two main ways of using it. The way it is advertised to be used is a source of truth for the network. You enter the data in Netbox, and then that is what you want the network to look like. Your automation tools use the Netbox API to get the information they need to configure systems. The other way to use it is to get the current device configurations, and import them into Netbox. You can use the API, or if you have everything in excel already you can import it as a CSV. Then it is a fancy mutli user version of your spreadsheet. That is where we are right now. We have everything entered into Netbox, but just like the spreadsheets it needs work to stay up to date. I am working on making network diagrams from Netbox, and then automating the gathering of info from devices.

-Otanx

Dieselboy · September 26, 2019, 01:36:36 AM

Thanks for the explanations Otanx I understand that now. If you make any headway on the diagram part pls let me know. I'd probably switch to netbox if the diagram was built (and readable by regular peoples) from netbox config. Otherwise it's really only myself that maintains the config and spreadsheet.

Otanx · September 26, 2019, 12:54:25 PM

Yep, once I get it working I will post something. It will probably be awhile. It isn't a tracked project here, and so I only get to work on it when I hit road blocks. I am hoping it is usable by everyone. Also remember you don't need to use everything. If you like the IPAM then just use IPAM, and ignore the DCIM side.

-Otanx