Re: [NNagain] upgrading old routers to modern, secure FOSS

[David Lang <david@lang.hm>]

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On Mon, 23 Oct 2023, Karl Auerbach via Nnagain wrote:

> It would be nice if we built our network devices so that they each had a 
> little introspective daemon that frequently asked "am I healthy, am I 
> still connected, are packets still moving through me?"  (For consumer 
> devices an answer of "no" could trigger a full device reboot or reset.)

I agree with a lot of what you say, but I want to throw in a word of caution 
here. I have seen systems go from 'slow but functioning' to 'completely down and 
requires a complete datacenter shutdown to recover' because of automated 
response systems that decided to restart something when it didn't respond fast 
enough, triggering a cascade of failures that prevented any service from being 
able to start into a healthy state.

I've also implemented monitoring on APs to restart them if they don't have a 
path to the Internet, resulting in continual reboots when there is a transitory 
issue (now changed to only check their next hop and only shut down wifi to avoid 
becoming a black hole for that SSID

to err is human, to really mess things up requires a computer, and automation 
removes the oversight from the computer allowing it to do more damage faster.

David Lang