Need some advice on learning networking

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

If you are only wanting to see if you have any ports open to the rest of the world, you can't beat Steve Gibson's Shields Up. Some of his other utilities are also useful. GRC | Gibson Research Corporation Home Page

That sounds interesting. I'll be sure to give it a go. Thanks, slim.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

Server arrived today. It took much longer than I expected to install Sever 2019, Totally different process from doing it on VMWARE.


See below:


server2112.jpg


serverrrrr.jpg

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

All I want to do is play on the Dell PowerEdge Server but I must get back to the grind of CCNA. The server is much more fun to play with but I'm committed to CCNA. It's basically taken over my life. This was never in the plans but there's no turning back now.

[Tricky]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

Question

I start firefox and go to google all good.

However

"tracert www.google.com" has a few lines with destination host unavailable or something like that, as I understand these routers ignore the icmp echo, so what's the point of configuring a machine like this?

[rthonpm]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

Question

I start firefox and go to google all good.

However

"tracert www.google.com" has a few lines with destination host unavailable or something like that, as I understand these routers ignore the icmp echo, so what's the point of configuring a machine like this?

Generally it's the core routers that are set to ignore ping attempts to reduce the attack surface. The last thing anyone needs is a tier 1 provider having their interconnects hit with a DDOS attack.

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[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

I've been playing around with Windows Server 2019. I'm always amazed at the things that can be done. I learned about Folder Redirect months ago but kinda forgot about it until today...when I set it up. That's just one of the awesome things that can be done.


I really need to stay away from the the server until I'm done with CCNA. And that's exactly what I plan on doing.

I want to thank rthonpm again. XBYTE is a great company. The server looks practically new and it works great. It was professionally packaged and shipped. The price was a little higher but worth it.


I have a question for you rthonpm. What course would you recommend for learning Windows Sever 2019?

On a side note, rthonpm comes across to me as a very humble dude. Don't let that fool ya, he knows his stuff. I hope I can one day get to where he is.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

Like I said earlier, I'm taking 2 separate online courses for CCNA. One deals with a lot of theory that is explained via lectures. Then there's the practical course that deals with programming switches and routers.

I've put in countless hours to get to this point. It's been grueling hard work. At the end of the day, I've completed 79 of 310 sections on 1-course and 33 of 193 sections on the other course.

I'm not gonna lie, it's like I'm standing in a deep hole looking up at a mountain.

The CCNA course isn't measured in hours or days. It's measured in months. The sheer volume of information makes me wonder how anyone can pass the test. It really doesn't seem possible. However, it can be done and I just gotta keep the faith.

[rthonpm]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

The most important thing anyone looking to learn Windows servers can do is learn PowerShell. It allows you to do a lot of things that take considerably longer through the GUI tools. Even Linux systems can have it installed as well.

Almost every function of Windows can be configured or managed through it.

Here is the current list of all the cmdlets available broken down by areas of use: Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019 | Microsoft Docs

Overall, the docs.microsoft.com site has a lot of really good resources for learning just about everything at a high level.

I've been on the IT side for so long now that most of my server knowledge is more or less baked in.

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[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

The most important thing anyone looking to learn Windows servers can do is learn PowerShell. It allows you to do a lot of things that take considerably longer through the GUI tools. Even Linux systems can have it installed as well.

Almost every function of Windows can be configured or managed through it.

Here is the current list of all the cmdlets available broken down by areas of use: Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019 | Microsoft Docs

Overall, the docs.microsoft.com site has a lot of really good resources for learning just about everything at a high level.

I've been on the IT side for so long now that most of my server knowledge is more or less baked in.

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Powershell looks like monster to learn. Then again, that's the same thing I said about Command Line for Cisco. Now I love it. Do you use Power Shell?

[rthonpm]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

I use PowerShell mainly for:

Creating and managing Hyper-V VM's
Creating printer ports
Adding DHCP reservations
Monitoring RAID arrays through a script that outputs a statement my monitoring server can read
Checking connections to SMB shares, and what version of the protocol is being used

It's an incredibly powerful language and I'm only using a fraction of what it can fully do, but the actual logic of it is pretty simple. It's just verb-noun then your conditional options like:

Add-PrinterPort -name "10.100.100.11" -PrinterHostAddress "10.100.100.11"

This creates a TCP/IP port of 10.100.100.11 with the same name

Or

Add-PrinterPort -Name "LPR-Ricoh-MP3353" -LprHostAddress "10.100.100.11" -LprQueueName "lp"

Which creates a TCP/IP port on the same IP as the first example in LPR mode with the LPR queue name of lp, where the port would show up in the list of available printer ports as LPR-Ricoh-MP3353 instead of the IP address.

When you have say fifteen or twenty ports to add being able to pipe the output of a formatted text file with the port name and IP you want, or just hitting the up key and changing the IP address and name is a lot faster than doing the same thing through the GUI, especially for LPR queues.


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[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

When the time comes, I plan to get certified on Windows Sever. I'm sure Powershell will be part of that. I've read enough about powershell to know it's a powerful tool. I think slim sent me an article on how to migrate a local profile to a domain profile using powershell.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

Man, the other day was a rough day. I had grown frustrated learning all the CCNA material and when I saw that I had only completed about 15% of the course, it was disheartening. But after a good night's sleep I woke up feeling refreshed and ready to move forward.

When I signed up for the CCNA course, I had no way of knowing all the minutia I'd had to slog thru before I'd get to something that I considered actual networking. Most folks don't think about things like recovering a lost password for a router or saving the running and startup configuration. Hell, I'd never even heard of a running or start up configuration. Nonetheless, it's very important.

I've made a couple of major breakthroughs (at least in my mind) over the last couple of days. One of those breakthroughs involves Static Routing.

Static Routing isn't used a lot in the real world unless it involves a very small network with only a couple of routers. But if you're learning Routing & Switching, it's kinds important to understand the principle's behind static routing. I can honestly say that understanding static routing is a real bitch and I can also say that I've finally mastered it. Well, I mastered it more than enough to answer any questions on a test.

Anyway, I've made it thru learning all the basic stuff and fundamentals. That was some very complex material to learn. it's no joke. However, you can't move foward to the more complicated stuff unless you know the fundamentals.


Back to the grindstone.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

I continue to learn some cool things along the way. When you're building a routing table statically, you must configure a destination route AND a return route or ping will fail. Remember that pings send out a echo request and should receive a echo reply.

Anyway, if I construct a destination route and forget to construct a return route, ping will fail. The ping will make it there, but you'll never know that unless..... (here's the cool thing I learned)


Unless I run a "debug ip icmp". This will allow me to see the incoming ping without worry of the the ehco reply. I hope that made sense. It's kinda hard to explain.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

Every once in a while I feel good about myself when I'm working on my CCNA. But just about the time I'm feeling good, they throw some bullshit in the game. lol


This time it's Route Summarization.


This shit will blow your mind.


Check it out:



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The scary thing is, I actually understood all of that.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Need some advice on learning networking

When I first saw Route Summarization, it looked an awfully lot like Subnetting. It's not subnetting but it's very similar. In fact, the name for it is SUPERNETTING. Because I had taken the time to master subnetting, I found supernetting to be a piece of cake.

I see where this is headed. It gonna be about how to pick the best route in the routing table and that can get complicated.