The art and science of networking.

Welcome to Packets and Principles, a blog dedicated to exploring the world of computer networking and network architecture. My name is Jason Tally and I am a network architect with a passion for understanding how the Internet and other complex networks function under the hood.

In this blog, I aim to dive deep into the technical details of protocols and design principles that enable the modern networked world.

Recent Posts

• A MAC address lookup with no ads, no cookie popups, and no per-request cost

  Updated: 23 Oct, 2026

  In the middle of the night in an Atlanta data center, I wanted to look up one MAC address and got cookie popups and ads instead. So I built a lookup site that runs the query in your browser, plus an MCP server for AI agents, both with no per-request cost.

• Building an IPv6 Subnet Planner with AI Assistance

  Updated: 20 Dec, 2025

  Building an IPv6 subnet planning tool from scratch with AI assistance, after failed attempts to modify an existing IPv4 calculator. Covers the development process using opencode.ai and Claude, and introduces a new tool for visually splitting and documenting IPv6 address space with nibble-aligned boundaries.

• Cloudflare Zone Onboarding Options

  Updated: 9 Nov, 2025

  Choosing the Right Path: A Guide to Cloudflare Zone Onboarding Methods The first critical decision in migrating to Cloudflare: how do you onboard your zones? This post explores five onboarding methods—full DNS setup, secondary DNS, subdomains, partial CNAME setup, and custom hostnames—with detailed comparisons of their tradeoffs around DNS control, plan requirements, and per-application customization. Learn which approach fits your organization's constraints and why communication across teams is essential for migration success. Part of a series on migrating enterprise applications from F5 BIG-IP to Cloudflare

• Migrating a Public Web App from F5 BIG-IP to Cloudflare

  Updated: 9 Nov, 2025

  First in a series: A practical guide to migrating enterprise web applications from F5 BIG-IP to Cloudflare, driven by the October 2025 F5 breach and the principle of buying from builders rather than assemblers.