Network packets. They’re like magic. And I want to learn all the spells.

I remember this one day at the tech support job that helped put me through college (we’re talking 2000-ish, so tech was a little different back then…), a co-worker and I were trying to figure out a communication issue with a particular PCI card. We set up two of these PCI cards to communicate with each other through TCP/IP. I loved orchestrating the communication process from the back end and watching it succeed!

As I’ve been studying for Network+ exam and learning about network communication and IP packets, I installed Wireshark on my computer and captured a set of packets to look at. It’s crazy how much information is there and I want to learn how to decode and make sense of all of it!

Some resources I plan to use through the process:

• Lynda.com courses (library access is the best!): Wireshark Essential Training, Wireshark Network Troubleshooting, Wireshark Advanced Tools and Techniques
• Wireshark User’s Guide

I’ll let you know how it goes!