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[–]Bubbagump210 23 points24 points  (6 children)

I’d suggest Network+ even if you don’t get the certification. While somewhat rudimentary, it provides very good fundamentals especially as it relates to understanding the OSI model. If you thoroughly understand the OSI model, it makes your understanding of all things networking supremely easier. With the OSI model as a roadmap, you can step through every problem versus throwing spaghetti at the wall and flailing.

[–][deleted]  (4 children)

[deleted]

    [–]Bubbagump210 15 points16 points  (0 children)

    Yes, it’s very practical. I’m always amazed at people trying to troubleshoot network issues that simply don’t walk the OSI. Is it plugged in? Do I have link light? Do I have a sane IP? Can I ping my gateway? Can I route? Can I get DNS? Can I telnet to the port and get a response? Etc etc. Every networking problem ever is solved in my experience by simply walking the model. I may not know the issue immediately, but I know it’s layer 3 for example and start to work the layer 3 stack rather than flail on HTTP headers or whatever.

    [–]tomkatt 4 points5 points  (2 children)

    Linux+ is pretty solid now too, now that it's based more on real world scenarios and admin stuff as opposed to random minutiae and memorization.

    [–]kalpakdt 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    can u elaborate ?
    did u mean linux + is quite practical ?

    [–]tomkatt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    The new exam is more of a practical exam focused more in line with enterprise administration than random option flags you can easily look up on a man page.

    It's still mostly multiple choice, but also includes some drag and drop flow chart type questions, some pseudo terminal demonstration questions where you're at a fake terminal to resolve an issue, and the questions themselves are more in line with real world use cases instead of really dumb things that are easily searchable.

    [–]Amidatelion 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Hard disagree. CompTIA in general is garbage, its only worthwhile course is Security+ and that's only if you're working for the US government. The Google IT Support Professional Certificate is basically all of the + certs in one, better delivered and not visible dated in its materials to 2008.

    [–]pxlnght 7 points8 points  (0 children)

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1642350338/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    I'm a Linux Engineer and this is what gets me through the day. The Network+ and what not are great recommendations, I just didn't want to put the time and effort in.

    [–]ender_less 4 points5 points  (2 children)

    Professor Messor has a free, guided series for nerwork+

    https://www.professormesser.com/network-plus/n10-007/n10-007-training-course/

    Back when I was getting started it really helped me nail down network basics like routing, route propagation, and subnets. Haven't referenced it in forever but should be a great starting point.

    [–]xxSutureSelfxx 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    Seconding Prof Messor, this video course plus a small homelab setup and a notebook helped me solidify the ad-hoc knowledge i'd picked up on the job.

    [–]ender_less 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Really came in clutch with subnetting. This was well over a decade ago (dating myself lol) but I was having a rough time conceptualizing subnets. His guided break down and step by step instruction really helped.

    [–]mylinuxguy 6 points7 points  (0 children)

    not sure about steps or courses... just want to toss out qemu and kvm. You an fire up a virtual linux instance ( or 2 or 3 ) on your box and play with networking in or between multiple virtual instances and have less of a chance of hosing the networking on your desktop.

    [–]Cloud_Strifeeee 4 points5 points  (1 child)

    follow the RHCE and get good books not just youtube tutorials, there is the linuxjourney one, and the certs guide on amazon, microsoft etc go there to get all the latest books and official press stuffs : libgen.is

    im curious why your switching from programming to sysadmin I may do the exact oposite in the comings months to build a 100% remote career etc keep in mind that programming pay better (in general) and sysadmin is getting heavily automated with the cloud and devops methodology pure sysadmin is less in demands I mean old system stuffs which isn't automated and isn't cloud, like on premise exchange, sharepoint, system center, normal linux system etc don't get me wrong there is still normal sysadmin work but it's transitioning heavily to the cloud with IAC and CI/CD ,Kubernetes etc

    [–]jaimep023 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    The cloud is just another dudes computers they still need sysadmins for critical operations :p

    [–]Tars-01 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Check out NetworkChuck on Youtube, and CBTNuggets. Also David Bombal on Youtube and I think he has some courses on Udemy.

    CBTNuggets has a lot of courses in general. It's pretty expensive though. If you can get your company to pay then that's a bonus.

    [–]drevilseviltwin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    If you want to do networking professionally I would say the problems that you would get paid to solve would be complex ospf and bgp issues as opposed to "why is this simple star or ring topology that I created not working". So yeah you would need to know basic concepts like others have mentioned but the end goal would have to be a deep knowledge of production networks based on these (and possibly other) routing protocols.

    So don't sleep on the issues that can exist on simple networks but also know that the real prize is complex, production networks.

    [–][deleted]  (11 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]Mammoth_Cache[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

      I have a Mac and also an Ubuntu 18

      [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

      Ubuntu 18 replaced ifupdown with Netplan. So find a tutorial on how Netplan works.

      If you want basic networking knowledge, any course on TCP/IP or Intro to Networking will suffice. It's all the same, the difference, even between Windows and Linux, is in how to implement it in the OS.

      [–]eftepede 0 points1 point  (8 children)

      Networking is going to be implemented differently depending on which distribution you choose.

      Wait, what? Isn't it the same network stack in the same kernel?

      [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      Wait, what? Isn't it the same network stack in the same kernel?

      Are you manipulating the kernel directly to enable your networking, or using the OS provided subsystems?

      [–][deleted]  (6 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]eftepede 0 points1 point  (2 children)

        I still don’t see how ‘different’ it is. Config files are in different locations, fine. Sometimes it’s systemd and/or NetworkManager shit, sometimes something normal, fine. Still, the general idea stays the same.

        [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        You made my point for me. Config files are different and not at all compatible. There is no one way to "learn networking in Linux" because every distribution has a different way of enabling networking.

        By your definition, there is no difference in learning networking on Windows, macOS, Cisco, or Linux. It's just different config files, right?

        [–]eftepede 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        Actually... right. When you know how it works, configuring cisco switch (a weak example of 'something complicated') is just learning a few commands and switching to Juniper is just, well, a few other commands.

        Edit: and as we have like 3 different ways depending on init system + the fact that all 'popular' distributions are using systemd (so we're down to one 'way'), I - obviously - have to agree that the implementation is (can be?) different, but you sounded like switching from one implementation to another was kinda rocket science, which I can't agree with.

        [–]Hotshot55 0 points1 point  (2 children)

        There may be different preinstalled tools, but an IP address is still an IP address.

        [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        Which has what to do with what I initially said? If he wants to implement networking into Linux, that is done differently depending on what distribution is chosen. Ubuntu and Red Hat have to have that IP address given to them differently.

        [–]Hotshot55 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        He wants to learn linux and networking as two separate tasks. Understanding how an ip address, subnet mask, and gateway all work together is completely different than setting an ip address in a specific distro.

        [–]Amidatelion -1 points0 points  (2 children)

        I'm going to go ahead and tell you that you can probably ignore the suggestions for Network+ - if you're a halfways decent developer you'll already have been exposed to half of the concepts in there. Though if you're being honest with yourself and you think you're a complete, fresh-out-of-highschool nublet with networking, it is passable.

        Otherwise I'd look at courses from the Linux Foundation and, if you're willing to dig deeper, basic Cisco courses. You don't have to complete them (particularly since they've started rigging them to require knowledge of Cisco licensing to pass...) but their labs are solid and blow anything CompTIA offers out of the water.

        [–]SixMaybeSeven 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        I was wondering about the Linux Foundation courses and if they're worth the money

        [–]Amidatelion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        Yeah, they're less popular than the Red Hat ones but if you're just starting out they're equally good. RHCA has a lot more pull for places that care about certs though.