Network-Automation on Gene Reader

Nautocon and AutoCon4 Session Notes (Unofficial)

eugene.reader@gmail.com (Gene Reader) — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 16:52:05 -0800

These are my personal reflection notes from the AutoCon4 and Nautocon sessions I attended. I took notes during the sessions and expanded them the same day while everything was still fresh, trying to pull out the high-level concepts I wanted to remember.

I wrote most of this in fast shorthand during the talks, then turned those notes into fuller summaries later. That means there is always a chance I captured something imperfectly or interpreted a point differently than the speaker intended. Any mistakes are mine.

What AutoCon4 Taught Me

eugene.reader@gmail.com (Gene Reader) — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 14:17:51 -0800

I went into AutoCon4 expecting to hear new tooling ideas, clever automation tricks, and maybe a few case studies to bring home. I walked out with something very different.

Instead of focusing on the latest frameworks or features, almost every speaker pushed a much deeper point.

If you want to go deeper in what I learned at Nautocon and AutoCon4, I have also published my expanded session notes: Nautocon & AutoCon4 Session Notes (Unofficial)

Building a Network Automation Lab: Containerlab + NetBox on macOS

eugene.reader@gmail.com (Gene Reader) — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 14:00:00 -0700

Building a Network Automation Lab: Containerlab + NetBox on macOS

Building a foundation for network automation testing and development on a Mac from 2018

The Challenge

I needed a reliable local lab environment for testing network automation scripts and prototyping configurations. My 2018 MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM isn’t exactly cutting-edge anymore, so I had to be smart about how I used my resources.

My goal was to build something that could handle real routing protocols and integrate with modern automation tools, but wouldn’t require enterprise hardware or cloud resources.