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

I'm tired of being loosely familiar with a great deal of concepts, and yet a master of none. Of knowing at an "enthusiast" 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, "How would I manage email for a company with 50,000 employees?" Where does one even begin to tackle that kind of problem?

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'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's reach?

(Actually, I wouldn't mind a kind of top 100 RFCs to know like the back of your hand.)

How do I scale my own research?

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'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'll get a certificate.

I'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 'a little'. I'm self-taught in all aspects of computing, and I went to school for English.

I'm 27, and I want to be a desirable piece of talent by the time I'm 30.

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 · 12 years ago

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 · 12 years ago

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.

2close4comfort · 12 years ago

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 · 12 years ago

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.

runjake · 12 years ago

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.

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.)

rman666 · 12 years ago

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

cjreyes · 12 years ago

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.

cjbprime · 12 years ago

Dead Comment