Wow! Getting help from a super knowledgeable AI that has near instant access to the entire web is amazingly helpful. Seriously this is the best wish I wouldn't have known I needed to ask a Genie for.
This is a moment when my state-of-mind just got expanded, I'm blown away!
I'm saving my conversations for future reference, they are that helpful. I'll link to the text of the conversations in case the details are interesting. Maybe someday I'll make them into HTML pages, but I don't have time right now... ... ...Grok can put my conversation with it into HTML, because of course it can.
While getting some Dell 5548 network switches connected to my network I ran into some stumbling blocks. I didn't remember my own network configuration. Specifically what ports on my desk router were connected to what VLAN. Along the way I discovered that some of my network hardware, while behind my firewall, wasn't setup to use SSL, when I turned SSL on I got a warning that the randomly generated certificates created by the software on my network hardware couldn't be validated and hence couldn't be trusted.
That rabbit hole led me to learning about wild card certificates, and that SSL was considered outdated. I'm a bit behind on the state of the art. At least I'm behind on the details, I've at least heard of TLS. So, concerned that my network hardware really should be using TLS, but that my browser only told me "http" vs "https" I asked Grok about it, TLS_vs_SSL.
Bottom line: to know for sure if something is using SSL or TLS sniff your own packets, and look for the handshake. Cool! -- I really enjoy using my shark tap. I know there are other ways of duplicating traffic on a switch and monitoring it, but conceptually a shark tap is so much easier. Although all that is a bit annoying right now; I need to focus on this 5548 switch. So I'm writing the SSL/TLS certificate issue down on my project list for later...
I stated a different conversation and with Grok's help I got the switch to re-enable it's web management interface after I had accidentally turned it off, which was the goal of this troubleshooting session. I went on for a while with Grok, but I was really tired; cause it was late; also I forgot to ask Grok to give me short answers; it tends to ramble and "think out loud" - It wouldn't surprise me if it was mirroring me! I'll have to work on that; and I'll have to remember to tell it to give me short answers.
Here is a link to the conversation. I don't think it's worth reading!!
