network

NAS time!

Current Projects

I’ve wanted to set up my own Network Attached Storage for quite a while now. Well, I found a sweet deal on this 5-bay NAS on Prime Day on October, and I finally sat down and got it up and running this week!

I put two 4T WD Red drives in it (also on sale Prime Day!), and put a price watch on those drives in camelcamelcamel so I can hopefully fill the other 3 bays over the next year or so.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

  • It was actually really easy to set up. I put the drives into the bays, plugged it into my network and the wall. Then I installed the management software on my iMac and stepped through the drive setup. I want to say that within 30 minutes it was ready to go.
  • I know very little about servers.
  • Things that I hear about that sound intimidating (Docker anyone?) are usually not that hard once you get into it.
  • Google is my best friend. (OK, I knew that one already!)

The one thing it did without asking me was set up the drives on a RAID array with RAID 1. I wasn’t planning on doing it that way, but I’m going to leave it for now. I think once I add a couple more drives I’ll rebuild the array using a higher RAID… I feel like for my purposes mirroring the data isn’t the best use of drive space.

Here’s what I have installed on it so far. Of course I started by looking for an anti-malware, and Clam Antivirus is the one recommended by the OS so I figured I’ll try that out. (It’s part of Cisco so right away I feel like it’ll probably be good!) And right off the bat I knew I wanted to set up a VPN server (there was one by Terramaster ready to install), and learn a little more about Docker. I also set up a Plex server to see what that’s all about (not sure if we’ll actually use it or if I’ll end up taking that one down in the end).

Oh, and I set up an Apache Guacamole instance in Docker but don’t have any machines to connect it to yet–guess that should go on my project list!

So many things to serve = so much to learn!

CompTIA Network+ complete!

Learning Path

Woohoo, I passed the Network+ exam!

I wanted to finish by the end of the year, and when December came I realized I would need to take the exam before the kids finished school–because once they’re home all day every day, and with my husband planning on being home most of the days during the break as well, I want to be able to be present for the festivities! So I scheduled the exam for the day before their last day of school.

Then life got unpredictable, of course, and I ended up having way more work to do for my husband’s business (I’m his admin and tech support for all the business things). Test week crept up on me and I didn’t feel ready! So I added Jason Dion’s Udemy course and extra practice exams (The courses were on sale for $10 each and for me it was so worth it!) to my list of resources, doubled down on all the practice tests–going through them afterwards to see what I missed, which helped me learn a ton–and went through the exam objectives to make a good list of the things I was weak on.

I was kind of surprised how helpful it was to read the sections in the textbook on the things I struggled with. Subnetting was hard to really get down with the videos, but going through that chapter in the book brought it home for me! I was still consistently failing the practice tests the first time through, so on test day I was super nervous.

But guys, as I went through the test I was surprised at how many answers I just knew. And a few I worked through carefully, and one or two I ended up guessing. And it felt so good to get the Congratulations message!

Then I celebrated with some In-N-Out on the way to get the kids from school. ‘Cause what’s an achievement without a little celebration after?!

CompTIA Network+ Studies

Current Projects, Learning Path

Getting ready for the Network+ exam next! I have to say, I’m glad that I started with A+. I feel like it was broad and foundational, making it easier to jump in to the more specialized network topics.

Here are the study resources I’m using:

  1. Professor Messer‘s N10-007 Network+ Training Videos on YouTube
  2. CompTIA Network+ Deluxe Study Guide Fourth Edition by Todd Lammle
  3. Professor Messer’s Study Groups – I listened to the podcast while driving, but these would be pretty cool live!
  4. Oh, and of course the exam objectives from CompTIA!

I’ll let you know how the exam goes!

Wireshark

Project Ideas

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!

Wireshark, Part 2

Courses

In the fall I discovered Wireshark and honestly it’s been an amazing tool!

The following courses on LinkedIn Learning were awesome! Check your local library for access to LinkedIn Learning courses, it’s a great way to get amazing content for free!

I’ve learned that there’s a lot of detail in each packet, and a tool like Wireshark can help unlock the magic! If you haven’t tried it out, I’d definitely recommend it.