Bits, Bytes, & Radio Waves

A quiet journey through discovery and understanding.

  • OpenSSL Commands

    Prerequisites Access a Computer with OpenSSL Copy the file(s) to a system that has OpenSSL. If you are on a Windows machine, the easiest way to do this is to use Git for Windows (https://git-scm.com/download/win). Once installed, you can run Git Bash and will have access to OpenSSL. Linux and macOS will likely already have…

  • Ports, Protocols, and Services (PPS)

    Introduction This is my attempt to keep track of various ports, protocols, and services for successful deployments of solutions. Active Directory Port Number TCP/UDP IANA Service Name IANA Description Common Use 135 TCP epmap DCE endpoint resolution RPC Endpoint Mapper 389 TCP/UDP ldap Lightweight Directory Access Protocol LDAP 636 TCP ldaps ldap protocol over TLS/SSL…

  • Building a Nested ESXi Lab for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) (updated 2023-Dec)

    Introduction The following post is very long and will contain updates as the technology changes and I figure out better ways to accomplish these tasks. VMware Cloud Foundation, or VCF, requires at least four nodes for the Management Domain. Unfortunately, I do not have hundreds of thousands of dollars for physical hardware to test and…

Notes from practice

I use this site to document systems, configurations, and lessons learned as I work through real problems—both professionally and through personal experimentation. The goal is clarity: understand how something works, explain why it behaves the way it does, and make it reliable and repeatable.

These notes are written primarily for myself, but shared openly in case they help someone else avoid a dead end or reduce frustration. If you’d like to learn more, visit the About page.

If you have questions or comments, you’re always welcome to contact me.

Aaron Rombaut

Technologist & Writer