Author Archives: Varun Sinai Priolkar

How I wrote a WhatsApp auto birthday and festival wisher

I had a problem up my sleeve. I had to find a way to wish people on festivals on their birthdays on the most popular messaging platform WhatsApp. On the weekend I managed to write something for this. Firstly I would like to apologise for accidentally spamming my entire contacts box during testing. I had… Read More: How I wrote a WhatsApp auto birthday and festival wisher »

Thoughts about my job change – E2E Networks to Award Force

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that I will be joining Award Force, an SAAS startup based out of Australia but with a fully remote workforce. The company provides an industry leading award management solution. I will no longer be employed by E2E Networks Limited. The new role will be fully remote and… Read More: Thoughts about my job change – E2E Networks to Award… »

Rajdhani Express first class review – An unforgettable experience

On my usual Goa to Delhi trips I decided to try out Rajdhani first class instead of the usual flight option. I had a spare sunday at my disposal and was tired of flying so decided to try the best that the Indian Railways had to offer. I booked a single normal first-class(1AC) ticket from… Read More: Rajdhani Express first class review – An unforgettable experience »

Issues plaguing NIXI internet exchange in India

Before proceeding I want to make it absolutely clear that these are my personal views only and nothing to do with my employer or their views. National Internet Exchange of India(NIXI) is an internet exchange in India, infact one of the few in the country and is fully government owned non-profit entity initially established to… Read More: Issues plaguing NIXI internet exchange in India »

Ultimate OpenVPN setup – inter-connecting, connecting to multiple sites at once

I had multiple networks scattered around different places and needed a way to link all of them together. They were as follows: Work related VPNs. There were multiple VPNs to access different parts of the internal networks. Handling multiple VPN files was very cumbersome. For convinience let’s assume we have a single network here –… Read More: Ultimate OpenVPN setup – inter-connecting, connecting to multiple sites at… »

Free wildcard certs with Let’s Encrypt & DNS auth ft. Route 53

Everyone’s favorite SSL certificate authority Let’s Encrypt recently announced support for wildcard SSL certificates on their forum here using the ACMEv2 API. Wildcard SSL certificates still cost as much as $150-300/yr on the market. Getting them for free is a huge bonus. Install Certbot Grab the Certbot tool for issuing Let’s Encrypt signed SSL certificates.… Read More: Free wildcard certs with Let’s Encrypt & DNS auth ft.… »

Multi-WAN failover without session termination

One of the reasons why people run BGP is when reliability is of utmost importance and sessions terminating abruptly can simply be not afforded, especially in cases like VOIP. However this is an expensive proposition both cost and skill wise. There may be a middle ground between this and simple failover with multiple uplinks. That… Read More: Multi-WAN failover without session termination »