Dutch cabinet says BGP in good hands at IETF in response to Facebook incident

▼ Laurens Dassen, a new member of the Dutch parliament after the March elections, representing the pan-European party Volt, put several questions about the October 4th Facebook outage to the Dutch cabinet (administration). Yesterday, minister Blok of the ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate answered those. The fourth question was about BGP, among other things.

The Facebook outage was caused by installing a BGP configuration with an error in it. Which underlines what I've been saying for a long time: when all the important parts of your network are redundant and you're using BGP to reroute automatically when failures happen, the remaining outages are your fault. So quite a heavy responsibility. Redundancy wasn't an issue with this incident: Facebook has datacenters all over the world. But if you use automated tools to push out a broken configuration to all of them at once, then it's game over. Remote access also didn't work anymore, and I gather that even access to the buildings didn't work anymore. Probably not exactly what Zuckerberg had in mind with move fast and break things.

See the Dutch version of this post or use Google Translate to read the relevant question and the answer.

The main points: BGP worked correctly and BGP is being developed by the IETF, which is an appropriate forum for that work.

They probably don't realize that BGP has been essentially the same for 27 years: in 1994 BGP version 4 was defined and that's the version we still use today, with relatively minor additions.

Further reading and listening:

• Presentation NL-ix BGP security update
• Geoff Huston's Survey on Securing Inter-Domain Routing part one en part two (beginner-onvriendelijk) en "epic diatribe" in podcast-vorm over dit onderwerp, ook in twee delen: part 1 and part 2

Permalink - posted 2021-11-11 - 🇳🇱 Nederlandse versie

Review: Peak Design Anchor Links to quick-release your camera strap

▼ I've had a few Nikon cameras, and those always come with a perfectly usable strap. The only issue is that putting the strap on a camera and getting the length just right is a rather involved process.

And sometimes I need a strap, but in other situations, it gets in the way. So I asked about straps that are easy to attach and detach in a forum, and one of the suggestions was for a Peak Design strap.

Peak Design as an entire system, with different kinds of straps that all use the same quick release mechanism. Their straps seem pretty good but a bit more than what I need for my non-pro cameras and matching lenses.

So I decided to get the Peak Design Anchor Links. (About $20/€20.)

This is a small set that contains:

1. Four anchors
2. Two anchor links
3. Two rings

If you're into watching Youtube photography channels, you've probably seen the little black discs with a red edge that hang off of the sides of a camera before. The anchors click into the anchor links, which are of course attached to the ends of a strap.

A Nikon strap with anchor links on the ends and the anchors in the middle:

The anchors are quite small, here compared to some coins: 20 South African rand cents, 1 US dollar cent, 1 euro cent and 10 Canadian dollar cents:

The anchor's cord loops attach quite nicely to a Panasonic DMC-TZ70 compact camera:

However, the cord won't go through the holes on most Nikon cameras. I used the included rings with this Z fc:

On the Nikon F65 on the left there are no issues attaching the anchors, and on the D7100 on the right I used the triangles that the Nikon strap normally loops through. Not very elegant, though:

Verdict:

Attaching to many Nikon cameras is not ideal, but being able to take off the camera strap in seconds is really great.

The system is rated for 90 kg. When you start to see the yellow core of the anchor cords, you know it's time to replace the anchors. The anchors definitely won't come out of the links by themselves: you have to push the anchor down and slide it up until it comes out of the anchor link. So this seems like a very secure system.

The anchors are plastic so they won't scratch your camera, but I believe the anchor links are aluminum, so you'll probably want to take off the strap when putting away the camera.

I like the fact that you get four anchors, so you can outfit two cameras with anchors. Also, the anchors themselves are pretty easy to attach/detach, so you can use them with even more cameras without much trouble.

The only thing that could make this better would be "slim anchors" option with thinner cords for lighter cameras.

Highly recommended.

Permalink - posted 2021-10-16

Mixing old and new Nikon lenses and cameras

▼ Seven years ago, I wrote Understanding old Nikon lenses: AI, AI-S, AF and AF-S. A few things have changed since then, so I thought it was time to do a follow-up that looks at how well different Nikon lens generations go with different Nikon camera generations.

The easy solution is of course to uses lenses and cameras of the same generation. All Nikon cameras introduced since about 2015 work with all Nikon lenses introduced since about 2000. But where's the fun in that?

First: what’s new since my previous article: AF-P lenses, E lenses and the new Z mount.

AF-P

For the past 20 years or so, Nikon’s autofocus lenses used ultrasonic "silent wave" motors in their AF-S lenses. AF-P lenses use pulse / stepper motors. Those can make small changes very quietly, so they're great for video. A big difference between AF-S and AF-P lenses is that the manual focus ring on AF-P lenses is not mechanically connected to the lens elements. Instead, the focus ring sends information back to the camera, which then uses the focus motor to change the focus.

This change means that the camera needs to know about AF-P lenses, or you won't be able to focus. Cameras introduced starting around 2013 support AF-P lenses. For some of these, a firmware update is required, and possibly there will be some reduced functionality.

E (electronic aperture) lenses

AF-P lenses also tend to be type E, indicating the lens has an electromagnetic aperture diaphragm actuator. (Not to be confused with "E series" manual focus lenses.) Support for E lenses goes back a few years further than AF-P lenses, to around 2008-2010, depending on the camera type.

Z mount

In 2018, Nikon introduced the Z line of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, and these cameras no longer have the F mount that Nikon's SLRs have used since 1959. Nikon has released a number of Z mount lenses, which are all AF-P as well as type E lenses. Of course these lenses don't work on older cameras, but F mount lenses will work on Z series cameras through the FTZ adapter. All the discussion below is about F mount lenses, for Z type cameras use of the FTZ is assumed.

The lens types

From left to right: pre-AI, AF-S type G, AI, AF type D, AI-s

So now we have an understanding of the following types of lenses:

• Pre-AI: manual focus
• AI or AI-s: manual focus
• AF: focus motor in the camera body
• AF-S, DX and FX, ultrasonic focus motor in the lens
• AF-P, DX and FX, stepper focus motor in the lens

All types of AF lenses also have a CPU in them which lets the lens tell the camera its properties. Let's see how they work on different cameras. I'll talk about the following specific cameras that I own, or more broad categories:

• Nikon FE, standing in for the AI type manual focus film cameras (around 1980)
• Nikon F65, as an example of a late lower end autofocus film cameras (around 2000)
• DX, the lower end crop sensor DSLRs (D3x00 + D5x00 and their predecessors)
• D7x00 and their predecessors mid-range DX camera with AI/AF lens support
• FX, the full frame high(er) end cameras
• Z DX: the Z50 and Z fc
• Z FX: the Z5, Z6 and Z7

So here we go.

Nikon FE and contemporaries

• Pre-AI: camera doesn't know aperture setting, so problematic metering
• AI or AI-s: perfect!
• AF: good!
• AF-S type G: no aperture ring, so fixed aperture and problematic metering
• AF-P: focussing impossible

Nikon F65 and similar

• Pre-AI: mounting will cause damage
• AI or AI-s: no CPU, so no or problematic metering (manual focus)
• "AF": perfect!
• AF-S, FX: perfect!
• AF-S, DX: typically black corners, some lenses may work to some degree
• AF-P: focussing impossible

DX DSLRs (lower/mid-range)

• Pre-AI, AI, AI-s: no CPU, no metering
• AF: manual focus
• AF-S: perfect!
• AF-P: depends on camera age

D7x00 and its predecessors

• Pre-AI: mounting will cause damage
• AI, AI-s: no CPU, enter lens data manually (manual focus) (no metering on D7500)
• AF-D: perfect!
• AF-S: perfect!
• AF-P: depends on camera age

FX DSLRs

• Pre-AI: mounting will cause damage
• AI, AI-s: no CPU, enter lens data manually (manual focus)
• AF-D: perfect!
• AF-S, FX: perfect!
• AF-S, DX: automatic cropping, but viewfinder shows black corners, some lenses may work in FX mode to some degree
• AF-P: depends on camera age

Z mount DX with FTZ

• Pre-AI, AI, AI-s: no CPU, so stop down metering, reduced focus aids
• AF: manual focus, reduced focus aids
• "AF-D": manual focus
• AF-S: good, somewhat hunting and noisy focus in video mode
• AF-P: perfect!

Z mount FX with FTZ

• Pre-AI, AI, AI-s: no CPU, so stop down metering, reduced focus aids
• AF: manual focus, reduced focus aids
• "AF-D": manual focus
• AF-S FX: good, somewhat hunting and noisy focus in video mode
• AF-S, DX: automatic cropping, also the viewfinder image, somewhat hunting and noisy focus in video mode
• AF-P FX: perfect!
• AF-P DX: automatic cropping, also the viewfinder image

As always, additional caveats may apply, be sure to check compatibility for your specific camera before you go out and get new lenses.

Conclusions

It looks like the D7100/D7200 as well as the not-too-old FX cameras are compatible with all F mount lenses. There is not a single lens type that works fully with the entire range of cameras, but the AF type D lenses come closest: they work on the old manual focus cameras, work with with autofocus on the mid/higher end DSLRs and still work fully as manual focus lenses on all other cameras.

An AF type D lens is still largely usable on cameras like the Z family, where you'll have to focus manually. But with the traditional "electronic rangefinder" focus aid available, where the autofocus system tells you if you've achieved focus, that's actually a bit easier than on an old manual focus camera such as the FE. However, manual focus lenses without a CPU for some reason don't get full focus aids on the Z cameras. You can still focus very precisely by zooming the viewfinder, but this is quite slow.

So there you have it. I'm sure the next few years the second hand F mount lens market is going to quite interesting, as more and more Nikon users migrate to a Z camera or a non-Nikon mirrorless camera.

Update:

In the original version of this article, I mistakenly said AF lenses that are not AF-D lenses don't have a CPU. That's incorrect. On DSLRs AF and AF-D lenses work the same, but for some reason on a Z camera (through the FTZ) the AF-D lenses have full focus aids but AF lenses have reduced focus aids. However, AF lenses are still more functional than non-CPU manual focus lenses because on AF lenses, the camera can control the aperture.

On non-CPU lenses, the camera doesn't know the aperture so it's difficult to use apertures smaller than about f/5.6 or f/8 because focussing gets more difficult at smaller apertures, so you may have to use stop down metering.

Permalink - posted 2021-10-09

Amiga short takes, juggling CF cards edition

▼ In this latest installment of Amiga short takes:

• Iconverter v1.0 released
• Just use FAT32 for your external CF cards
• Back up to HDF images
• CardBootDisk
• Joystick restrictor plates
• The Deathbed Vigil
• WHDLoad doesn't like network connectivity

Iconverter v1.0 released

Almost two months ago I released version 0.8 of Iconverter, a tool to convert old Amiga icons so they look right on Amigas running a newer OS version. Version 1.0 will now write ColorIcons by default, but can still write NewIcons. It can also read NewIcons and ColorIcons, and thus covert between the two. And write BMP files. (See the Changes section in the documentation for more details.) Available here and on Aminet.

Amiga 3000 boots a lot better with FastFileSystem added to a boot partition

Because I was getting read errors on the CF card that my Amiga 1200 uses as its harddrive, I decided to play musical chairs with all the SD cards. Which resulted in my 3000 not willing to boot even though it had three perfectly good boot partitions on different drives available. (The superkickstart that needs to be loaded from the harddrive makes the 3000's boot process rather complex.)

These issues went away after I used HDToolBox to "add" the 3.0 version of the FastFileSystem to these boot partitions.

Just use FAT32 for your external CF cards

Replacing the CF card is the easy part. The hard part is getting all the data from the old one to the new one. Now I could slightly cheat because I have an IDE-to-CF adapter than can take two CF cards. With that, it's just a question of setting up the right partitions and copying all the data with copy DX0:#? to DY0: all clone.

In the past, I've managed to mount Amiga-formatted CF cards using a PCMCIA adapter. But that's quite a bit of work and often unsuccessful. However, mounting FAT32 formatted cards in the PCMCIA slot is super easy. So after inserting a third, FAT32-formatted card to temporarily hold the data in the PCMCIA slot, now it's time to...

Back up to HDF images

Obviously it's possible to copy all the files to the FAT32-formatted card. And even though the Amiga isn't too picky about special file properties, there's always a chance that something gets lost in translation. Also, copying individual files is relatively slow. It's much faster to just write an HDF image of the partitions on the old card to the temporary card. The TSgui tool will do that.

This worked very well on my Amiga 3000, but not so much on the 1200: systems running Workbench 3.0 said the image "was not a DOS disk". After I got 3.1.4 back up and running again on the 1200, it mounted the images just fine. However, I couldn't make an HDF image of my largest partition at all. It looks like TSgui is limited by the original Amiga 4 GB drive size limit.

Still, it's not a bad idea to create empty HDF images (or download these) and mount those with ImageMount and copy files to the image rather than directly to the FAT-formatted card. Just make sure to check whether they're readable before switching those internal CF cards...

CardBootDisk

So now you have an empty CF card inside the Amiga and a FAT-formatted card with all your data (and, for good measure, ADF files of the Workbench disks and a copy of HDToolBox). Then you turn on the computer and it doesn't see any of that. So I made a CardBootDisk, which is a floppy that has all the drivers to mount FAT-formatted cards in the PCMCIA slot and ImageMounter to mount ADF, ISO and HDF images. So after booting from that floppy you can partition your new internal CF card and start copying data to it. If you forgot anything, just plug the CF card into another machine (in my case my Mac) and copy the missing data on the card and put it back in the 1200.

Download the ADF image of the CardBootDisk. Tip: if you're installing a fresh copy of AmigaOS, first copy all the files from the CardBootDisk to the harddrive and then install the OS over it. You should then still see the CF card after booting from the harddrive.

Joystick restrictor plates

I got an arcade style joystick recently. I'm not entirely happy with it, but I also don't want to write a bad review. So I'm just not going to name any names. Anyway, the actual joystick mechanism is great, much better than my old joysticks from the C64 days or the ones that come with THEC64. (Too bad the THEC64 won't recognize this joystick when used with a perfectly good DB9-to-USB adapter.)

The thing I wanted to mention is the restrictor plate. This one came with a square one with rounded corners. When playing my favorite game, BoulderDäsh, that doesn't work very well. When for instance you move right, but not exactly at a 90 degree angle, but let's say 95 degrees, the restrictor plate makes it really easy to slip down to 120 degrees or so and now you're trying to walk diagonally. Which makes Rockford walk down.

The fix is to rotate the restrictor plate 45 degrees. Now the round parts catch the underside of the joystick as you move left/right/up/down. But in this configuration, it's almost impossible to move diagonally. So for games that need that, this is unworkable. Solution: get a new restrictor plate. Gaming supply shops sell those. I got an octagonal one, which works fine, but perhaps a round one would have been even better.

Restrictor plates. Who knew. Of course with arcade games a joystick would only be used with a single game, so it makes sense that there are different ones that allow for different degrees of freedom. Something to check for when buying joysticks.

The Deathbed Vigil

Recently I rewatched "The Deathbed Vigil and other tales of digital angst", the movie Dave Haynie made of the last days of Commodore. If, unlike me, you didn't get your VHS copy 25 years ago and still have a VCR to play it, you can now also watch the movie on Youtube. Don't miss the "Chicken Lips Blues" at the 55:30 mark.

WHDLoad doesn't like network connectivity

A good way to easily run demos and games, especially floppy-based ones, is with WHDLoad. On the official website they focus on providing "slave" definitions that allow you to import your existing copy of games, but of course helpful individuals around the internet have already imported lots of games... You then just click an icon and you can start the game.

However, when I tried installing WHDLoad last year, I could only get a handful of games to work, most would just show garbage on the screen. But then when I was messing about with CF cards, all of a sudden all the games worked. Turns out that WHDLoad makes some kind of network connection (as it tells me there is a newer version) and then doesn't work properly. Shutting down the network before starting any games fixes that.

Update:

I blocked cgi.whdload.net so WHDLoad can't perform its update check, but that didn't help. After some further checking, it looks like it's a hardware issue with the way PCMCIA network cards work. I normally use the I-Card, which is a wired 10 Mbps Ethernet card. With that one, if I shut down Roadshow, my networking software, WHDLoad games work. Or, keep the network stack running but unplug the Ethernet cable. But as soon as I plugged the cable back in and the Amiga started to receive (broadcast) packets, the game stopped working. So I'm guessing the issue is with interrupts generated when packets arrive.

With the 11 Mbps Wi-Fi card there's obviously no cable to disconnect, and just shutting down the network stack isn't enough: the Prism driver comes with a WirelessManager program that handles connecting to the right network, so you need to shut that down, too. Use the status command to see the process number (for instance, 6) and then type break 6. Interestingly, taking the wireless network down by turning off the wireless access point also works, even though the activity light on the Wi-Fi card still blinks once in a while.

And... then it turns out this is a known bug. RTFM, Read Those Fine Manuals. Weird though that WHDLoad happily uses the network as you start a game and doesn't issue a warning.

Permalink - posted 2021-08-15