Learning objectives
- Understand enterprise networking terminology.
- List some benefits of private networks and proxies.
- Recognize issues related to inbound proxies.
- Recognize issues related to outbound proxies.
Enterprise Networking Terminology
- private network: a network that communicates with the wider internet via proxies; VPC (“Virtual private cloud”) on AWS
- inbound proxy: more formally “reverse proxy”; a server on the public network that routes traffic into a private network
- outbound proxy: more formally “forward proxy”; a server on the public network that routes traffic out of a private network
Benefits of Private Networks
- Deal with security issues at the proxies
- Easier to route traffic (and change routing) to specific servers
- Easier to manage ports
- Can block traffic to/from specific unwanted sources
- Or block all traffic and only allow specific white lists
- Can optionally handle authentication at the proxy & pass token/header along
Issues with Inbound Proxies
- Connections from your laptop to the server
- Things that are often configured:
- Upload/download file size limits.
- Upload/download/session timeouts.
- Signs that you might be fighting against an inbound proxy:
- Uploads/downloads from you to the server fail or cut off early.
- Your session keeps ending (you have to log back in).
- Special case: Websockets
- Older proxies might break things like Shiny and Streamlit.
Issues with Outbound Proxies
- Connections from server to the internet
- Rarer than inbound.
- “Air-gapped” often means “strong outbound proxy.”
- Things that can be impacted:
- Downloading packages (other than from internal package manager).
- Accessing external data (APIs).
- Updating system libraries (hopefully your IT has a plan for this).
- Software licensing (software might ping a server).
- IT often open to allowing access to specific URLs, so ask!
Meeting Videos
Cohort 1