Lightboard Lessons: Behind the Scenes
We’re several episodes in on our new Lightboard Lessons series now. We’ve had quite a few questions on how it’s done. This article will address those questions as well as some of our own lessons learned along the way. We recorded a brief behind the scenes video as well you can watch before we get into the details. The Build The lightboard itself is made up of a heavy duty frame, a 3/8” sheet of low iron glass (commercial name starphire,) and a string of LEDs to wrap the edges of the glass to shoot light inward to make the neon markers pop on camera. We researched the technology on Lightboard.info, where a college professor has documented and open-sourced his build. There are a lot of different builds linked there, from large complex builds to desktop models. Given the space we had to construct a studio, we went with a 4’ x 6’ sheet of glass, which we ordered from a local glass company. Order the frame first, though, so you can give the specific hole size and location for mounting the glass. After assembling the frame and mounting the glass (the second glass, the first one was delivered with the holes cut on the long ends instead of the short ends,) we assembled the LED strips for mounting on the glass edges. Several builds used 3D printed clamps, and some with high-power LEDs that needed heat sinks went with metal mounts. Our build went super low tech with shower door 3/8” u-channel. Yep, stay classy! But hey, our LEDs are low power, didn’t need the heat sink, and since we don’t have a 3D printer handy and the linear feet we needed printed from an online shop would have cost us a few hundred dollars, we figured it was a smart move. The Accessories Now that we had a lightboard, it was time to shoot some video! But…we needed some accessories to make this work. First, the backdrops. We could paint the wall black, but since the space we used for the initial sprint of videos was not dedicated studio space, that wasn’t an option. So we ordered a couple black muslin backdrops, one for behind the glass, and one for immediately in front of the camera (more on that later.) The LEDs lit the board, but we also needed lighting to light the subjects, in this case John and I. So we got a cheaper lighting kit with four lights so we could have key, fill, and backlighting for the videos. You can do it with just the key and fill lighting, but the subject will look better with backlighting. Of course we needed some neon markers as well for the writing, as well as a microphone and video camera. Thankfully, we already had those, but I’ll add them in with the bill of materials anyway. The Setup The picture below shows how we had the studio configured. It took some time to move all the pieces around to make sure we had the room to get lighting, backdrop, and camera in the right place. Some of the other builds have had success with less room between the glass and the backdrop, but this worked well for us. Camera distance from the glass is kind of important (see below.) Some builds use a mirror to shoot the video through, but we just flip the image in post production. Post Production The post production process is pretty simple. We upload the audio files from the Zoom recorder and the video files from the Blackmagic camera. The video is usually quite large so this takes some time. We do the video editing in Adobe Premiere Pro. We import the audio/video files for a particular episode into a template that is already setup with our intro/outro/lower third assets. We merge the audio file and remove the trace audio from the video clip. After that is done, we drop the raw video onto the timeline and find the grey card frames. After adding the fast color correcter and setting white balance, saturation, and fixing white/black levels, we apply the horizontal flip filter to flip the image so we don't appear in reverse. Finally, we do the cleanup. Cut the pre/post video sequence from the clip, then align the clip with the intro/outro/lower third, and add transitions. The only other step before exporting for youtube is to clean up the audio. Adobe's integration here is pretty decent, so I can launch Adobe's audition from within Premiere Pro, clean up the noise on the clip, save and exit, and the audio is ready to go on the clip in Premiere. Lessons Learned Shooting video, with lights, and glass…oh the reflections! It took time to figure out the right layout, lighting, and squelching of external light to eliminate all the reflections. One of the bigger light bulb moments was moving the camera way back away from the glass, this took care of all the annoying reflections. Using the second drop cloth immediately in front of and under the camera took care of everything else. Another thing we learned is we really didn’t need too much light. We had too much light hitting the backdrop, and the subject, and cleaning that up in post production was tough. Backing off the number of active bulbs per lightbox helped tremendously. Also, if you don’t want light on the backdrop, don’t light it! We angled the backlights away from the backdrop and onto the subject and that helped crush the blacks in the backdrop in post production as well. We also did two other things with the video shooting: matched the white balance setting in the camera to the bulb “color.” We also use a grey card when we start shooting so I can properly set the white balance in post production editing. This makes all the coloring of the shot super easy. I don’t understand any of that aspect of this process, you’ll have better luck talking to a videographer about that! Ain’t gonna lie, cleaning the lightboard is rough! The neon markers leave a greasy residue, and we tried many different ways to clean the board. Here’s what we found works well for us: Erase the markings with a dry-erase marker or a paper towel. (If the former, follow up with a paper towel to remove the dust) Spray glass cleaner and wipe with a paper towel. Don’t use windex, use a foaming cleaner. The glass company we got the glass from gave us “Sprayway glass cleaner” and it works wonders. Buff out any remaining streaks with a dry paper towel In the event a streak or two wouldn’t come out with that process, we have a mild abrasive cleaner from CRL called Sparkle. It’s amazing. Rub that in with a cloth and then polish it out. The Bill of Materials One thing of note. We ordered power supplies for our LED strips, but the strips we got from Amazon came (undocumented) with power and a dimmer, so we didn’t need to use the power supplies we ordered. You might need a few more parts than are on this bill of materials if that isn’t the case with your order. Also, what’s not in the bill of materials are SD cards for the camera, batteries, power strips, audio jumper cables, etc. Description Qty Link or Provider Custom Frame 1 New Revolution Tools Starphire 4' x 6' Tempered Glass 1 Martin Glass 8mm - 5m 5000k 3528 8mm LED Strip 2 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005ST2I9O/ 6" jumpers for LED Strips (4 pack) 1 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0062RBR84 StudioFX Muslin Backdrop 2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WJ12U9C/ LimoStudio Backdrop Stands 2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005BHAYGM/ 3/8" U-Channel 3 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A3I31M8 Expo Neon Markers 2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0033AGVVG/ StudioPro 4000-W Lighting Kit 1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FG5G1FC Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 1 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CWLSHUK/ Panasonic Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm f/2.8 1 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZYRP90A Zoom H4N Digital Multitrack Recorder 1 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UK7G3UO/ Sennheiser ew 112-p G3 Tx/Rx Kit 1 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002CWQTXG Well that's a wrap! Have you used a lightboard? Itching to build one now? Drop a comment below if you have suggestions for us on how to improve the board or the videos, and what content you'd like to see us cover going forward!Lightboard Lessons: F5 BIG-IP DNS (GTM) iQuery Protocol Overview
In this episode of Lightboard Lessons, I introduce iQuery, the F5 proprietary protocol utilized by BIG-IP DNS to exchange system configuration with other BIG-IP DNS systems and performance metrics with all other BIG-IP systems configured to do so. Resources Communications Between BIG-IP DNS and Other Systems Troubleshooting BIG-IP DNS synchronization and iQuery connections (11.x - 13.x) What is BIG-IP DNS? Getting Started with BIG-IP DNS (GTM) Configuring BIG-IP DNS (GTM)Lightboard Lessons: BIG-IP Life of a Packet
In this episode of Lightboard Lessons, Jason updates an earlier Whiteboard Wednesday with a slight change in flow introduced in TMOS version 12.1. Some of the features in this flow are only applicable if you have hardware or if you have security licenses applied. If that is not the case, just assume a PASS for those blocks. Source DiagramLightboard Lessons: Perfect Forward Secrecy
Perfect Forward Secrecy allows your encrypted communications to stay secure even if a bad guy were to steal the private key of the websever you were communicating with. But, how is that possible? And, how can a web server be configured to achieve this level of security? In this video, we talk about the concept of Perfect Forward Secrecy, describe how it all works, and then show how you can configure your BIG-IP to make sure you take advantage of this really cool security functionality.Enjoy! Related Resources: Perfect Forward Secrecy Ciphers Enabling Perfect Forward Secrecy Breaking Down the TLS Handshake How RSA Works SSL Ciphers Supported on BIG-IP PlatformLightboard Lessons: Vip Targeting Vip
You’ve seen our Whiteboard Wednesday videos, but we are kicking it up a notch with our new “Lightboard Lessons” video series. In this video, I cover the basics of how to pass traffic from one virtual server to another on the same BIG-IP (what we affectionately call the vip targeting vip solution) and a couple use cases I’ve used in production and test scenarios (articles of which are linked below in the resources.) Resources Project Acceleration: Test Infrastructure DevCentral Architecture Solution 10379: A local virtual server cannot be used as a pool member Solution 14180: The connection mirroring feature is not compatible with VIP-targeting-VIP solutionsLightboard Lessons: Explaining TLS 1.3
The newest version of the TLS protocol was recently approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force -- TLS 1.3. There are several key changes in this protocol such as a requirement to use Perfect Forward Ciphers, and the introduction of a Zero Round Trip Time handshake for session resumption. In this video, John outlines many of the important features of this new protocol. Related Resources: F5 Labs: The 2017 TLS Telemetry Report What is Transport Layer Security?Lightboard Lessons: Introducing the F5 Advanced WAF
The F5 Advanced Web Application Firewall (WAF) provides a powerful set of security features that will keep your Web Applications safe from attack. Many WAFs offer a basic level of protection from attack at the higher layers of the OSI stack, but the F5 Advanced WAF takes things even further and offers some serious security features like Anti Bot Mobile SDK, Credential Stuffing threat feeds, Proactive Bot Defense, and Datasafe to name a few. In this video, John outlines many of the exciting features offered in the F5 Advanced WAF. Related Resources: F5 Advanced WAFLightboard Lessons: Microsoft AD FS Web Application Proxy Using F5 BIG-IP
Many users and organizations want the flexibility and convenience of identity federation and Single Sign-On (SSO) from the corporate network to intranet, extranet, and cloud applications. Users want touse their corporate login information to access applications outside of the organization...for example, login from the Microsoft/Windows environment and have seamless access to Office 365 and external applications like Salesforce and Concur. Microsoft utlilizes a WebApplication Proxy (WAP) that acts as agateway product to allow external users to access internal applications (behind the firewall), like Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) for example. The F5 BIG-IP can be used to providehigh availability, performance, and scalability for both AD FS and AD FS Proxy servers using theLocal Traffic Manager (LTM) module. The same BIG-IP can also be usedto secure AD FS traffic without the need for AD FS Proxy servers by using the Access Policy Manager (APM) module. Check out the video below to learn more! Related Resources: Deploying F5 with Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services Active Directory Federation Services Content MapLightboard Lessons: SSL Transactions Per Second
The number of SSL Transactions Per Second (TPS) that your BIG-IP can handle is important to know as you deploy web applications. In this video, we discuss how the BIG-IP calculates how many SSL TPS you can perform and what you can do if you are getting close to your limit. During the video, a couple of tmsh commands are referenced; here they are for your review. The command (and sample response) to show how many SSL Transactions Per Second you are licensed for: tmsh show sys license detail | grep -i perf_SSL_total_TPS perf_SSL_total_TPS : 500 The command (and sample response) to show how many TMMs you have: tmsh show sys tmm-info global | grep -i 'TMM count' TMM Count 4 Remember to multiply the SSL TPS by the number of TMMs to get the overall number of SSL TPS for your BIG-IP system (in this case, 500 x 4 = 2,000 total SSL TPS). Related Resources: Overview of SSL TPS Licensing DevCentral Q&A thread on SSL TPSReal Attack Stories: The "MOP Sink" Attack
The F5 Silverline Security Operations Center (SOC) has recently seen a multi-IP protocol DDoS attack where the attackers use packets with lots of different protocols in the IP header. IP packets typically have TCP or UDP protocols, but there are up to 253 others. This attack has been named the Multiple Originating Protocols (MOP) Sink attack because it uses all the available protocols validated by IANA in the IP header. The attack is very new, but it is increasing in popularity. Watch the video to learn more! Related Resources IANA List of Protocol Numbers in IP Headers
