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If you have a bit of cash to spare you could get yourself a router, managed switch and an access point. This would allow you to build a "homelab" and play with

If you have a bit of cash to spare you could get yourself a router, managed switch and an access point. This would allow you to build a "homelab" and play with VLAN, NAT, VPN, firewall, DMZ... which are the basis of networking and probably required notions to approach bigger enterprise networks.

zerkten 6y ago
I followed this approach to solve a similar problem to that posed by the OP (dev wanting to refresh on TCP/IP and networking for k8s) and I can confirm it works. I got some second-hand gear which was useful because they didn't have any niceties, but basic Ubiquiti kit will blow away consumer-grade kit. Setting up some WireGuard VPNs is pretty useful and easy to practice with too. I wanted to replace my existing gear, so I didn't choose to go with pfSense. If you have some free computers that can accept additional network cards, then that might be a good outlet. People were pretty enthusiastic about it. People on the reddit.com/r/homelab and WillieHowe.com Discord channels were pretty friendly when I had questions. TCP/IP Illustrated is a really good book for a developer to have. It might not be as useful for someone without a dev background.
- C1sc0cat 6y ago
  Depends on area but I did an evening class at my local community college on the CCNA - this is a real Cisco course and very hands on with real hardware.
stingraycharles 6y ago
I have this, it’s pretty awesome. I can recommend Mikrotik hardware, it hits a sweet spot for me that they’re “enterprise but still accessible”. Their support team is great as well.
hpkuarg 6y ago
Cannot second this hard enough. The best way to learn this stuff is to tinker, and the best way to get started tinkering is to do it at home.
freehunter 6y ago
And if you’re going this route, take the time to set up Splunk or QRadar Community Edition or if you’re willing to spend a small amount of money, Azure Sentinel. Some kind of logging/SIEM tool. It’ll make debugging problems 100x easier and pretty much all enterprise companies are going to have one of those three tools in their environment for exactly the same purpose.

zerkten 6y ago

I followed this approach to solve a similar problem to that posed by the OP (dev wanting to refresh on TCP/IP and networking for k8s) and I can confirm it works. I got some second-hand gear which was useful because they didn't have any niceties, but basic Ubiquiti kit will blow away consumer-grade kit. Setting up some WireGuard VPNs is pretty useful and easy to practice with too. I wanted to replace my existing gear, so I didn't choose to go with pfSense. If you have some free computers that can accept additional network cards, then that might be a good outlet. People were pretty enthusiastic about it. People on the reddit.com/r/homelab and WillieHowe.com Discord channels were pretty friendly when I had questions. TCP/IP Illustrated is a really good book for a developer to have. It might not be as useful for someone without a dev background.

C1sc0cat 6y ago
Depends on area but I did an evening class at my local community college on the CCNA - this is a real Cisco course and very hands on with real hardware.

stingraycharles 6y ago

I have this, it’s pretty awesome. I can recommend Mikrotik hardware, it hits a sweet spot for me that they’re “enterprise but still accessible”. Their support team is great as well.

hpkuarg 6y ago

Cannot second this hard enough. The best way to learn this stuff is to tinker, and the best way to get started tinkering is to do it at home.

freehunter 6y ago

And if you’re going this route, take the time to set up Splunk or QRadar Community Edition or if you’re willing to spend a small amount of money, Azure Sentinel. Some kind of logging/SIEM tool. It’ll make debugging problems 100x easier and pretty much all enterprise companies are going to have one of those three tools in their environment for exactly the same purpose.