[HN Gopher] Computer Networking Fundamentals - Learning Series (...
___________________________________________________________________
Computer Networking Fundamentals - Learning Series (2023)
Author : 2-3-7-43-1807
Score : 114 points
Date : 2024-11-18 10:08 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (iximiuz.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (iximiuz.com)
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| FYI, the modern version of the intro networking book we (UC
| undergrad computer science) had 20 years ago is Computer Networks
| 6th ed. by Tanenbaum.
|
| If you want a programming language to really dig into parsing and
| creating packets and binary data, Erlang (and Elixir), while a
| completely different programming paradigm daunting to novice
| users, are unmatched (pun intended) in generating and parsing
| binary packets with a native and flexible binary data type.
|
| If you want to be able to observe, decode, and inspect real
| packets on your local network, then you need wireshark and/or
| tcpdump.
|
| If you want a home lab for simulating various networks with
| various clients, servers, and network devices either XenServer
| (free) or VMware ESXi (pirated "free" v.7 or maybe v.8) are good
| options because they simulate dumb virtual switches, virtual
| networks, and virtual computers (VMs) in another piece of
| software that replaces a real computer's (usually a server but
| rarely a desktop or laptop, but also it can run inside a VM on
| desktop, laptop, or server using what's called a type-2
| hypervisor) operating system with its own (type-1 hypervisor).
| (VMware pre-Broadcom and Citrix engineering cultures had an
| unspoken, unwritten "gentleman's agreement" that industry-limited
| pirating was cool so long as it wasn't unreasonable, and product
| licensing wouldn't break customers' production and would be
| limited to nags. Comes from the mouth(s) of (a) certain former
| product manager(s) at one or more of the above entities. Pirating
| developer use for self-demoing within the industry was a nonzero,
| unrecognized sales acquisition channel that was probably
| important in large customer bases but under-appreciated... most
| engineers/IT people don't want to have to deal with vendor
| sales/sales engineering meeting free lunches and sit through
| vendor demos so see if a product trial will work or just to get
| an installer and a demo license key.)
|
| https://search.worldcat.org/title/1085945855
|
| PS: I'm wondering if there's retro networking/netadmin homelab
| community that buys 10 Mbps - 1 GbE Cisco gear and goes through
| CCIE courseware to see all the old protocols and old problems
| like spanning tree loops, crossover cables pre auto-MDI-X, and
| duplex flapping with Intel PRO/1000 in generation 8-9 HP and Dell
| servers.
| rkagerer wrote:
| I suspect Windows owed a not-insignificant portion of its
| popularity to their similarly lax attitude to licensing once
| upon a time.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Sort of, inconsistently. Bill Gates' "An Open Letter to
| Hobbyists" was finger-wagging about rampant pirating of
| Altair BASIC in 1976 was a thing. The fight evolved into
| multiple generations of copy protection and cracking/copy
| defeat measures, SPA "shareware" crippleware, and Nancy
| Reagan-like "Don't Copy That Floppy". Personal-use pirating
| was rampant. Heck, when I worked at Egghead Software, the
| store manager's unofficial was anything that was
| shrinkwrapped but not envelope license sealed could be
| borrowed, taken home, and brought back. There wasn't much
| point in violating that generous policy because not for
| resale (NFR) full copies of the expensive stuff were
| available from the vendor representatives (Microsoft,
| Borland, Corel) for between $1 and $50 (USD). I think Borland
| C/C++ 3.1, the largest and heaviest shrinkwrapped software
| package with books ever made, was probably NFR $70.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| You might enjoy the YouTube videos put out by a channel called
| Serial Port, they refurbished old equipment to run a web host
| by way of a Cobalt RaQ 3
|
| https://www.patreon.com/serialport/about
| UltraSane wrote:
| The Python library Scapy is also excellent at creating and
| manipulating network packets.
|
| EVE-NG is an excellent free network simulator.
| meltyness wrote:
| GNS3 work pretty good
| teleforce wrote:
| I've also had Computer Networks, 1st Edition by Tanembaum as my
| textbook back in the days.
|
| Nowadays, you will be much better of with Computer Networking:
| A Top Down Approach by Kurose now in 8th edition:
|
| https://gaia.cs.umass.edu/kurose_ross/index.php
|
| There's also videos by Prof Kurose himself teaching from the
| book from Youtube, and additionally the ppt slides and
| exercises are available without registration unlike many
| textbooks.
|
| I think the book set a very high standard on how textbook
| should be written and presented (any subject not only computer
| networking).
|
| Fun facts, the 1st edition already logically and fundamentally
| separated forwarding and control planes for better
| understanding even before the modern software-defined
| networking (SDN) was proposed. The newer editions already have
| forwarding and control in separate chapters, nice.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| 2nd edition. I was one of the fools who didn't go start a
| startup in Palo Alto when money was raining heavier than
| tulips in 17th c. Holland.
|
| I think you're waxing rosy retrospection that might be
| overly-generous. The OSI model turned out to be an overly-
| complicated, academic mirage and not a great fit to describe
| reality that wasn't useful L4+. SDN is mostly just network
| virtualization / tunneling by encapsulation, which has been
| rediscovered over and over again since the telegraph, with
| the exception network gear became more programmatically
| flexible with the control plane / data plane concepts. With
| added expense, it's nice to have physically-separated
| management &| control plane networks from the data plane for
| security, backup connectivity, and DDoS out-of-band
| resilience.
|
| Even then, I think the academic networking curriculum missed
| opportunities to be practical and relevant with general basic
| network administration principles and high-performance
| interfacing approaches, such as offloading types, DMA, and
| zero copy.
|
| C'est la vie. There's EE/CS academia, which does teach
| general principles and hard fundamental well, but falls short
| of being practical. It seems like the pragmatic-
| experimentation side could be improved without sacrificing
| rigorous theoretical foundations. Because what's the (@!$&%
| practical point of implementing MICMAC in 44
| microinstructions with Huffman-encoded macroinstructions and
| gradual decoding minimized for microinstructions and for
| microcycles? Competitive hazing ritual abuse recounting. _"
| Oh yeah, I had to code upside-down, blindfolded, in the snow
| with only 4 keys made of ivory and we had to hunt the
| elephants ourselves!"_
| guerby wrote:
| There's also Proxmox as hypervisor, it's free software and very
| easy to install.
|
| Recent versions even have SDN builtin
| maxrecursion wrote:
| I started using proxmox a couple months ago and it's great. A
| really great alternative to VMware after the broadcom
| takeover.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-11-23 23:00 UTC)