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
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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
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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
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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
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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.