Roto And Cascade with Terts and Arya from NLnet Labs

Episode 14 – Roto And Cascade with Terts and Arya from NLnet Labs.

In this episode we have a conversation with Terts and Arya from NLnet Labs. Together we explore their paths into systems programming, the mission of NLnet Labs, and the critical internet infrastructure the organization maintains. The discussion spans DNSSEC, large scale DNS operations, Rotonda, and the Roto scripting language, with deep dives into performance engineering, zero copy design, and building resilient open source networking software. It is a technical episode that highlights the people and ideas behind essential internet protocols.

Learn more:

https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/ — NLnet Labs website https://github.com/NLnetLabs/cascade — A friendly DNSSEC signing solution https://indico.dns-oarc.net/event/55/contributions/1186 — slides of conference talk introducing Cascade https://github.com/NLnetLabs/rotonda — Modular, programmable BGP Engine https://github.com/NLnetLabs/roto — strongly-typed, compiled embedded scripting language for Rust https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xJEFPlfy7Y — EuroRust 2025 talk by Terts on Roto https://docs.rs/domain/latest/domain/new/base/wire/index.html — domain's zerocopy module https://bal-e.org/blog/ — Blog from Arya https://2026.rustweek.org/ — RustWeek 2026 (with open CFP until EOY 2025)

Rama

If you like this podcast you might also like our modular network framework in Rust: https://ramaproxy.org

Chapters

00:00 Intro 01:14 Backgrounds of Terts and Arya 10:37 Overview of NLnet Labs 17:43 Understanding DNSSEC 25:29 The Role of Cascade in DNSSEC 41:06 Understanding Roto and Rotonda 45:55 The Evolution of Roto's Scripting Language 49:34 Integration and Efficiency in Roto 52:05 Real-World Applications of Roto 01:00:36 The Importance of Data Structures in Performance 01:06:34 Optimization Strategies for High Performance 01:17:14 Zero-Copy Techniques in DNS Handling 01:26:06 Outro

Netstack.FM

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Music for this episode was composed by Dj Mailbox. Listen to his music at https://on.soundcloud.com/4MRyPSNj8FZoVGpytj