LRN: APRIL 15, 2024 My second entry in a series of logs used to track progress towards articulating and reaching my learning objectives. This entry is completed on a Monday, which is the beginning of my week. So I will use this entry to lay out what I hope to accomplish in the next six days. CCNA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I've decided to follow an online CCNA-inspired course. I chose this certiface's coursework rather randomly. A few online recommendations suggested the subject was was good, and my review of course content seemed to confirm this. I intend for the course to help me understand at least the datalink layer in computer networking. It should help me reach towards another objective I've set, which is to setup my own home network. In this week, I intend to prepare myself for the course by setting up my notes, reviewing the entire curriculum in greater detail, and dipping my toes into the first few materials. Curriculum and learning methods ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I still need to layout more foundation for what and how I intend to learn. I have notes I've manually written that need to be entered into my computer. In this week, I will move all my notes into my computer and finalize more curriculum problem/solutions. Networking tools and their use ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I have been using a bit of `tcpdump' and Wireshark to debug protocols and interfaces. For instance: debugging the BOOTP/DHCP protocol while my router/firewall tries to get an IP lease, analyzing server logs for port 70 (Gopher) to see what kind of traffic I'm getting, capturing SFTP connections to see why they're failing (client/server protocol mismatch: ftp vs sftp). I need to document these experiences vis a vis the NET-101 problem/solution I set last week. In this week, I will note down the reasons for using `tcpdump' and Wireshark (as I just mentioned), note the command used to capture packets, and note any observations I got from the packet analysis. Building an application protocol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I have started to work on building my own application protocol, a protocol for setting up and getting information from IoT sensor devices on my home network. I'm diving into this work ahead of some other items that shoLd logically be completed first. I think that's OK. At least: I'm willing to entertain this order of operations as an experiment to see whether leading with a hands-on activity gets me excited and attentive to the more theoretical activities. |