

Ask HN: How do I become an expert at network adminstration? - cz20xx

I&#x27;m tired of being loosely familiar with a great deal of concepts, and yet a master of none. Of knowing at an &quot;enthusiast&quot; level how traffic works, but not having the knowledge to attack a scalable problem. For instance, I could network the hell out of my home, but anything larger than that? A small business? A large corporation? A neighborhood, a government, a nation? How do I scale theoretically and apply those concepts pragmatically? What are the fundamental questions I should be asking myself and researching when I think of some hypothetical question like, &quot;How would I manage email for a company with 50,000 employees?&quot; Where does one even begin to tackle that kind of problem?<p>Furthermore, how would I acquire an intimate knowledge of networking beyond such a local scale. How do I learn the inner workings of the Internet&#x27;s infinitely complex design without having to (without a clear plan of attack regarding importance) read the RFC cover-to-cover with a dictionary and Google within arm&#x27;s reach?<p>(Actually, I wouldn&#x27;t mind a kind of <i>top 100</i> RFCs to know like the back of your hand.)<p>How do I scale my own research?<p>Sorry, I know this is a big, fat, somewhat nebulous question, but this is what I want to do with my life. I want to build networks, and I want to use that knowledge to add value to the world. I don&#x27;t want to get some certificate that says I know how to do something. I want to start reading the vast amount of free information out there and actually start doing it. Maybe after that I&#x27;ll get a certificate.<p>I&#x27;m a FreeBSD user, though I usually carry a MBP around. I know my way around tcpdump, and can throw up some fancy filters if given enough time to read through the man page. I can even script a little bit in perl and bash. Emphasis on &#x27;a little&#x27;. I&#x27;m self-taught in all aspects of computing, and I went to school for English.<p>I&#x27;m 27, and I want to be a desirable piece of talent by the time I&#x27;m 30.
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2close4comfort
I would say that you should get a copy of Network Maintenance and
Troubleshooting Guide: Field Tested Solutions for Everyday Problems, 2nd
Edition by Neal Allen and get a couple of switches, setup HAProxy and couple
of routers and get to work. You should be able to simulate the traffic
virtually but the know how of the physical is always important too. Plus look
into VMs like the Cisco UCS vm for looking at fiber switching and F5 BigIP vm
for load balancing a bit vendor specific but free...

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staunch
Learn everything in TCP/IP Illustrated like the back of your hand. Buy old
high-end gear on eBay ($50k switch from 8 years ago? $200). Setup your own
network. Get a half rack at a datacenter and run your own network and servers.
Get a job at a company that has interesting network requirements like high
capacity and/or high availability. Read UNIX Network Programming. Learn how to
write high performance client and server programs.

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runjake
Avoid RFCs unless you're working on a specific problem. You're also not going
to be able to become an expert in all the different fields, so focus on
specific fields.

For IP networking, I can specific recommend the following books as "force
multipliers" of knowledge:

\- Routing TCP/IP (Cisco Press)

\- Network Warrior (O'Reilly, Cisco-centric, but good, easy to digest
intermediate knowledge of layer 2 and 3)

\- TCP/Illustrated (A deep dive into TCP/IP. RFC-level depth but easier to
conceptualize)

If you're looking for recommendations for other specific areas, let me know
and I can probably point you in the right direction.

~~~
cz20xx
Well, aside from being able to build networks, I'm mostly interested in
securing them in the best possible way. I know there's no such thing as
perfect security, but I like the challenge of always trying to be one step
ahead. This probably stems from an interest in crypto, too.

(found a cheap copy of TCP/Illustrated 2nd ed. on Abe Books. I do so love that
site.)

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rman666
Install GNS3 ([http://www.gns3.net/](http://www.gns3.net/)) and a bunch of
virtual machines (servers, routers, firewalls, etc.) get to learnin'!

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cjreyes
Setup servers in a virtualized network at home and try to build a "mini-
internet". Setup fake companies with internal and external resources. Web
servers, email, DNS, DHCP, routing, etc.

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cjbprime
You can become an expert at netadmin, but not without administering real
networks -- have you tried applying for any junior netadmin positions or
internships?

~~~
cz20xx
Some context that I couldn't fit into the < 2000 char limit (but probably
should have).

This is the embarrassing part. I'm actually two months into my first junior
level position at a colo, and I administer a group of my own servers behind a
CARP'd redundant firewall that I set up. I even have access to an old Catalyst
that's just sitting around. I know how to set up servers no problem, but what
I don't know how to do is make a complicated cluster of machines work
together. I sometimes write down hypothetical networking requests to figure
out, but I haven't started building out any of those with the spare machines
we have around.

I don't feel inept at my job. I don't even feel like I'm useless. But what I
do feel is a vast chasm of knowledge and experience between me and my
superiors. Knowledge so vast that it seems unobtainable to me. My own skills
and knowledge have increased dramatically, and my appetite for learning daily
is, honestly, voracious. I just can't shake the feeling that I'll never be as
good, with them all coming from academic backgrounds that focused on
computing.

~~~
seiji
What do you mean by "make a complicated cluster of machines work together?"

At the simplest level, you have a big switch in the middle of your servers
that only connects to other switches that then feed your servers. That's about
all there is. You can pile on redundancies, bondings, vlans, software defined
networks, and other things as needed, but with the minimum requirement of only
"work together," those additional parts aren't required. (We're ignoring
Internet connectivity here and just "making machines in one facility work
together.")

Everything is just tiny pieces. The tiny pieces get put together to grow
networks larger. It can be complex, but it's not impossible to figure out.

If you're working at a colo, ask a few people to draw you diagrams of how the
facility's network is laid out. Then ask them to draw how a typical customer
deploys their network within your facility.

Ask, get confused, learn, ask more, then you'll have it all figured out pretty
fast.

