A departure from my MegaLinter articles on Flexion's blog, this is an exploration of security incident essentials and how they can help manage the impact of major breaches.
Mikrotik produces a variety of exceptional networking products including routers, switches, access points, and much more. Many of their devices run an operating system known as RouterOS. RouterOS provides a variety of interfaces, including a terminal, a web interface, API access, and more. That said, RouterOS devices, regardless of the foundation upon which they're built, don't provide a true shell -- you can't get a Bash shell, nor can you install arbitrary applications. Therefore, if we're going to use outside tools like Let's Encrypt or certbot, then we need to run them on a general-purpose system (e.g., Linux).
I use, enjoy, and advocate for Mikrotik devices running RouterOS. I'm reminded of my experiences of working with Cisco hardware -- the good parts, not the anxiety-ridden, late-night service calls to get our 6513s back online. Mikrotik gives me the configurability and stability of enterprise-grade hardware at prices that are closer to consumer-grade hardware.
In my home network, I use all Mikrotik networking equipment. It's rock-solid stable and performs extremely well.
One of my challenges, however, was configuring SSL / TLS on the web interface. Sure, RouterOS provides functionality to generate certificates and even to self-sign them. That's cool. What I really wanted was for the devices to use certificates signed by certificate signing authorities that my browser would trust out of the box.
Every year, I take a few weeks away from work in order to disconnect, recover, and change my routines. A few years ago, I took three weeks off fo work and it was transformative. I was active, I lost some weight, my blood pressure went down, my energy went up, and I was able to come back to work focused, energized, and ready to take on the world. I said to myself, "THIS is how I can focus on being a human being and not a human doing. I need to do this every year!"
Three weeks away from work was enjoyable and restorative. The temptation, for me, is to plop myself on the couch and turn my brain off. There's definitely some benefit to being disconnected -- no doubt about it -- but it can easily turn into swapping computer screens for televisions. This isn't the end of the world, but I fear that I'll look back when the time away from work and judge that I've wasted the entire experience.
I can only take this much time away from work once a year or so. My time -- both at work and outside of work -- is my most valuable asset. There are so, so many projects I want to take on and it can be a real challenge to dedicate large blocks of time in the middle of working. After a long day at work, I'm often tired or irritable or just plain wiped out. That makes these breaks just that much more special.
The fourth of my articles about MegaLinter on Flexion's blog, here's a process for Tuning MegaLinter for Optimal Performance and save time and money!
The third in my series on MegaLinter on Flexion's blog, here are Tips and Tricks to Unlock MegaLinter's Full Potential .
The second of my MegaLinter articles on Flexion's blog, this is a step-by-step guide to getting started with MegaLinter .
Check out my post on Flexion's blog describing 5 Ways MegaLinter Upped our DevSecOps Game !