Need some advice on learning networking

[rthonpm]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

From what I read about CompTia, it trains a person for an entry level job like Help Desk. That's just what I read when I was doing my research for deciding what course that I wanted to take. I figured if I was gonna do this that I would choose the harder one.

CompTIA certs have their place. I have an A+ and Net+ from them and you do get a good grounding in the fundamentals of a topic. For you, Net+ would be covering a lot of the same topics: OSI, subnetting, etc, just without the specific stuff related to Cisco and configuring the concepts.

Most low level CompTIA certs are seen as a way to demonstrate high level knowledge or to initially learn the concepts with a test at the end. As you get higher into their certs they become a little more challenging and can also certify you for other organisations as well (Linux+ does that).

For 90% of people here, the CompTIA certs would give you enough of a grounding to do just about anything you'd need to in the field with a decent grasp of networking and related concepts. By the time you get to the CCNA level, you're much more of a specialist as opposed to a generalist, and if switching and routing interests you, it will open a lot of doors.

Back when I was with Lanier, it was mandatory for techs to at least have the A+ cert. I even have the no longer granted PDI+ cert, which was intended for the basics of printer repair, though I got that later as a way to get a little bit of an edge when bidding on a decent sized contract.

Learning will always keep the opportunity coming.

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[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

CompTIA certs have their place. I have an A+ and Net+ from them and you do get a good grounding in the fundamentals of a topic. For you, Net+ would be covering a lot of the same topics: OSI, subnetting, etc, just without the specific stuff related to Cisco and configuring the concepts.

Most low level CompTIA certs are seen as a way to demonstrate high level knowledge or to initially learn the concepts with a test at the end. As you get higher into their certs they become a little more challenging and can also certify you for other organisations as well (Linux+ does that).

For 90% of people here, the CompTIA certs would give you enough of a grounding to do just about anything you'd need to in the field with a decent grasp of networking and related concepts. By the time you get to the CCNA level, you're much more of a specialist as opposed to a generalist, and if switching and routing interests you, it will open a lot of doors.

Back when I was with Lanier, it was mandatory for techs to at least have the A+ cert. I even have the no longer granted PDI+ cert, which was intended for the basics of printer repair, though I got that later as a way to get a little bit of an edge when bidding on a decent sized contract.

Learning will always keep the opportunity coming.

Sent from my BlackBerry using Tapatalk

I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and experiences with everyone. When I started this thread my goal was very simple: I wanted to learn how to network a copier. That's it. That's all I wanted to know. I mean, I could network a copier but if there was a problem, I was in trouble. I didn't know which way to turn.

At some point in this thread I became hooked on networking. Networking to me is as addictive as crack cocaine. "Hi, my name is Billy and I'm addicted to networking." lol

As far as the certs. go.... I respect anyone that puts in the time and effort and learn something new. I don't find any of this particularly easy to learn.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

I thought I'd share this. Below is a practice test exam that I had to complete. I'll post a picture of the network that I had to subnet for. Basically here's how it works. This is real world stuff.

You're given an IP address and told to subnet for 3 different departments. The IP address that I was given is 192.168.1.0/24.

I had to subnet to get 1 subnet for each department and the to take the last subnet of the 4 and to subnet it again with a /30 mask (/30 has only 2 possible hosts) for the serial links on the 2 routers.

I'll admit that it was a bit confusing at first, but I got it now.


See network:

Network 26.JPG

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

By the way, I learned so much by learning subnetting. Let's see if I can explain and make it make sense.


For one, subnetting allows us to conserve IP addresses. More importantly, I think, is that it cuts down on broadcast traffic. Can you imagine a HUGE network where no subnetting was used? The amount of broadcast traffic would be out of control. Sure, VLAN's will cut down the broadcast traffic for the network that the PC's are on but what the networks for inter-connected routers? They're not on any VLAN.


Here's a question. Why do we use a /30 (255.255.255.252) subnet mask for 2 routers that are connected together?

Anyone?

Here's a hint: Think switches and ARP requests.

[bsm2]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and experiences with everyone. When I started this thread my goal was very simple: I wanted to learn how to network a copier. That's it. That's all I wanted to know. I mean, I could network a copier but if there was a problem, I was in trouble. I didn't know which way to turn.

At some point in this thread I became hooked on networking. Networking to me is as addictive as crack cocaine. "Hi, my name is Billy and I'm addicted to networking." lol

As far as the certs. go.... I respect anyone that puts in the time and effort and learn something new. I don't find any of this particularly easy to learn.

Apparently NOT
Training for certifications takes hours weeks or months of study.
Difference is 15 minutes to find the problem or 2 hours without a clue.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

I spent the majority of the weekend learning about DHCP services across multiple vlans and it was one of the most confusing things I've run across thus far.


We need to keep this in mind: Every vlan is a separate broadcast domain...or network if you will. How do we get dhcp survives for every network? You could put a DCHP server on every network. That would get quite expensive. But that would be one way to solve the problem.

But what if we wanted one central DCHP server for all the VLANS. How would we do this? It took too many hours to get this down to where it's 2nd nature, but I finally got it.

I'll see if anyone can answer this question and I'll post my answer after enough time has passed.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

I spent the majority of the weekend learning about DHCP services across multiple vlans and it was one of the most confusing things I've run across thus far.


We need to keep this in mind: Every vlan is a separate broadcast domain...or network if you will. How do we get dhcp survives for every network? You could put a DCHP server on every network. That would get quite expensive. But that would be one way to solve the problem.

But what if we wanted one central DCHP server for all the VLANS. How would we do this? It took too many hours to get this down to where it's 2nd nature, but I finally got it.

I'll see if anyone can answer this question and I'll post my answer after enough time has passed.

Here's the answer. (see image below to look at the actual network setup)


In this particular lab, a layer 3 switch was used to create vlan10 &vlan20. A Cisco router is connected to vlan1 (default vlan). The Cisco router is the the DHCP server. Here's the problem....


The PC are on different vlans or networks if you will. The same is true for the Cisco router. Without making some changes, the PCs will not get a DHCP address.

Here's the solution. We must configure the Cisco router with 2 static routes. 1 will be for the network ID for Vlan10 and another static route for the network ID of VLAN20.

At this point the Cisco router will be able to ping VLAN 10 and 20, BUT DHCP still won't work. Why? Because when a PC sends out a DHCP request...it's a broadcast signal. Routers don't like broadcast signals and will be dropped. We now must configure DHCP helper and I won't go into that.



PS - Creating static routes blows and it's very time consuming and can get extremely complicated. There are much simpler ways of creating routes dynamically either by using RIP or OSPF. But in this course they want us to learn how to do it the hard way before using RIP or OSPF. It's a real bitch.

See image:

dhcp2112.JPG

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

Quick comment on Layer 3 switches...

Thus far I've mainly used a layer 3 ROUTER. Well, I've made it to the part of the course that deals with layer 3 switches. Let me tell you something...they're simple if you need to create some vlans or do inter vlan routing. Both take mere minutes to configure.

However, if you need to go outside of that layer 3 switch, it gets really confusing, really fast.

When we're dealing with a layer 3 switch, it has SOME routing capabilities but they're not PHYSICAL ports. They are logical routes. This is all done by the software of the operating system. There's nothing to visually see like on a regular router. Anyway, I won't go into a big long story, but it takes some getting used to.

[rthonpm]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

Ahh, welcome to the wonderful and exciting world of software defined networking.

You're really making me glad I don't deal with anything past the server. DHCP? DNS? Easy! Making it all work outside of the server room? That's someone else's problem.

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[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

Ahh, welcome to the wonderful and exciting world of software defined networking.

You're really making me glad I don't deal with anything past the server. DHCP? DNS? Easy! Making it all work outside of the server room? That's someone else's problem.

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I hear ya!!!

I think you had it right when you said that this is a specialty field. You're so right about it being software defined networking. Even on the regular Cisco routers, we are programing them to do what the job calls for. I look at it as playing the world's hardest video game. It's definitely different.

How well do you know Windows Server 2019? Or 2016? I'm running 2019 on a virtual box and I love it. Everything I've learned about it has been on my own, but if I can ever get thru this networking course, I'm jumping straight into another course on Server 2019. It's a hell of a lot more fun.

[rthonpm]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

How well do you know Windows Server 2019?

2019 is all we're deploying for customers now, and by the end of the summer I hope to have all of our company Windows servers over to it as well. I've even gotten to the point where I'm doing just about all of them as server core to make the installs even smaller. I've had experience with the server side of Windows going back to Server 2000, though 2003 R2 was my first full-time work with a server OS.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

I really haven't looked at what lies ahead in the CCNA course. I've only concentrated on the task at hand. Well, I looked to see what lies ahead and it hit me that this is very serious course on networking. Basically, we're using a simulation program by Cisco that's running their software, so it's just like you're configuring the real thing when it comes to switches and routers.

When I say it's a serious networking course, what I mean is that down the road I'm gonna have to build "College Campus Network" and it looks plenty complicated. Oh, well, I'll worry about it when I get there.


On another note...right now I'm learning about broadcast and collision domains. Quick question? What has more collusion domains...a hub or a switch? Don't google it.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

Quick question? What has more collusion domains...a hub or a switch? Don't google it.

Answer: A switch has more collision domains than a hub. Confused? I was too. lol


Collision domains sound like a bad thing, right? Actually, the more on the network, the better. This video explains it better than i can. But think of it as lanes on a freeway. The more lanes, the more room for traffic. See video below:

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

I have a customer that is using Windows Server 2019. Active Directory is not installed and needs to be. Here's my dilemma. When I join a local user to active directory, I need to migrate his/her user profile along with all their data to the new active directory account. I combed the internet for a solution but a lot of it looked complicated. What's the best way to do this?

Thanks in advance.


PS - I'm doing this as a favor so it's not critical. I told him I'd only check into it.

[slimslob]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

I have a customer that is using Windows Server 2019. Active Directory is not installed and needs to be. Here's my dilemma. When I join a local user to active directory, I need to migrate his/her user profile along with all their data to the new active directory account. I combed the internet for a solution but a lot of it looked complicated. What's the best way to do this?

Thanks in advance.


PS - I'm doing this as a favor so it's not critical. I told him I'd only check into it.

Thus might help. Import Users Into Active Directory From CSV – TheITBros