In a similar note, I Do care about networks and the like but fail to
fully understand the extensive details of how it all works. I do not
proclaim myself to be an engineer and try to stick with what I do
well. I read rfc, wikipedia, etc but just don't know what /to/ read.
I had never heard of iBGP, OSPF, IS-IS untill today. What I need, and
I'm sure quite a few others who listen to this list for insight, is a
good reference to pick up and read that will cover said topics and
beyond. I finally got the basic concept to CIDRs and how they work
thanks to this list and Google.
I know this message is slightly off topic from NANOG, but kinda fits
in response to parent and am hoping not to get flamed.
Any suggestions?
A Padawan,
Mark Owen
I'd start with Sam Halabi's Internet Routing Architectures book.
Keep reading everything you can get your hands on. When faced with a
question like "who owns this router?", don't waste your time signing
up for a mailing list just to make a fool of yourself. Do some
research. Keep reading. And before you know it, you'll have taught
yourself an amazing amount of knowledge.
It really is that simple.
Any suggestions?
Keep reading everything you can get your hands on. When faced with a
question like "who owns this router?", don't waste your time signing
up for a mailing list just to make a fool of yourself. Do some
research. Keep reading. And before you know it, you'll have taught
yourself an amazing amount of knowledge.
It really is that simple.
Alternatively, force yourself to study for Cisco's CCNA. That will, at the very least, give you a basic (vendor-specific?) understanding of networking.
I'm not a guru like most on this list, which is why I rarely chime in despite having been subscribed for 5 or 6 years, but Aaron nailed it here. I used this technique when I wanted to run my own DNS, mail & web servers and managed to teach myself all I needed to know to accomplish those things simply by reading what was available online. I also picked up a few books along the way, but everything you need is on the 'net.
St-
Grumble ... with reference to the issue of routing between connected
networks, your choice might be too advanced.
Douglas Comer's "Internetworking With TCP/IP Vol I" has been one of the
best introductions for years (soon literally "decades"), and should be
required reading before progressing to more advanced topics.
Life begins with ARP.
http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/netbooks.html
Best,
-- Per
Start with the OSI[1] model to grasp the fundamentals, next make sure
you have a basic knowledge of how TCP/IP addressing works[2]. To get
an understanding of routing-protocols, begin with RIP[3] and perhaps
run your own RIP-lab by using Quagga[4] software on a Linux box. That
will get you off the streets for a weekend 
Cheers,
Sabri Berisha <sabri@cluecentral.net> writes:
To get
an understanding of routing-protocols, begin with RIP[3] and perhaps
run your own RIP-lab
necromancy will be severely punished.
---rob
Sayeth RFC1925:
(4) Some things in life can never be fully appreciated nor
understood unless experienced firsthand. Some things in
networking can never be fully understood by someone who neither
builds commercial networking equipment nor runs an operational
network.
Just remember, all you dabblers - a properly designed lab environment is called
for, for the same reasons a pentagram is called for...
To get an understanding of routing-protocols, begin with RIP[3] and
perhaps run your own RIP-lab
necromancy will be severely punished.
many hand-on routing workshops start with rip, though with the
warning "you will now learn why not to use rip." it makes it
easy to teach poison reverse, ... in a relatively small setting.
randy
RIP also has the advantage that a worked, non-trivial example of the protocol can fit on a whiteboard, which makes it a reasonable way to teach the concept of a routing protocol to a classroom full of people who have never heard of such at thing.
Absolutely agreed, however, that such teaching also necessarily involves emphatic shouting of "YOU WILL NOT TURN THIS ON IN YOUR PRODUCTION NETWORK".
[ObAnecdote: I once heard of an airline reservations desk in Hong Kong which had a backup connection to the airline's main centre of operations far distant from Hong Kong, using dial-on-demand ISDN, circa 1995. The monthly invoice for international ISDN charges that followed a contractor's decision to "fix the router by turning on RIP" was apparently an impressive thing to behold, especially given the agressive ISDN idle tear-down configured on the router and minimum 1-minute billing per call.]
Joe
Hi,
RIP also has the advantage that a worked, non-trivial example of the
protocol can fit on a whiteboard, which makes it a reasonable way to
teach the concept of a routing protocol to a classroom full of people
who have never heard of such at thing.
Which is exactly the reason why I mentioned RIP as a routing protocol to
start with. Using RIP instead of OSPF or IS-IS has 2 advantages: one is
the simplyness of the concept and the second one you already mentioned:
Absolutely agreed, however, that such teaching also necessarily
involves emphatic shouting of "YOU WILL NOT TURN THIS ON IN YOUR
PRODUCTION NETWORK".
You learn why not to use RIP in an early stage of your career.
Mentioning the terms "router-lsa", "network-summary-lsa" or "nssa-lsa"
to a person who potentially does not even know the difference between a
distance-vector and a link-state protocol has no positive effect on the
learning curve.
> I have met "Senior Network Engineers" who don't understand longest
> match rule ("The traffic will take 10/8 instead of 10.0.0.0/24
> because it has a better admin distance", "I can override these 300
> OSPF routes with a single static supernet", etc), who believe that
> routers will not route between directly connected interfaces without
> putting them into a routing protocol, that transit networks don't
> need a full mesh of iBGP[1] because "you can just redistribute BGP
> into [OSPF/IS-IS/IGP of choice], that ICMP uses TCP as a transport,
> etc.
In a similar note, I Do care about networks and the like but fail to
fully understand the extensive details of how it all works. I do not
proclaim myself to be an engineer and try to stick with what I do
well. I read rfc, wikipedia, etc but just don't know what /to/ read.
I had never heard of iBGP, OSPF, IS-IS untill today. What I need, and
I'm sure quite a few others who listen to this list for insight, is a
good reference to pick up and read that will cover said topics and
beyond. I finally got the basic concept to CIDRs and how they work
thanks to this list and Google.
I know this message is slightly off topic from NANOG, but kinda fits
in response to parent and am hoping not to get flamed.
FWIW, I would suggest ISP Survival Guide: Strategies for Running a Competitive ISP (Paperback)
by Geoff Huston - ISBN: 0471314994, which does a good job with the basics, and is pretty
easy to read.
Regards
Marshall Eubanks
Per Gregers Bilse wrote:
Life begins with ARP.
I would have to argue that for majority of things connected to IP networks, life begins with DHCPDISCOVER.
Pete