Hello, Networking! The (mandatory) intro blog post
After years of tinkering and labbing, I decided its finally time to capture my thoughts.
Every network engineer has a folder somewhere. A .txt file, a OneNote page, a sticky note on the monitor, a running log of commands that once worked, configs that fixed something, and random workarounds.
This blog is my version of that folder, just made public.
Who am i?
If you did not read my About Me page, then let me do a quick summary. I am a network engineer who has always been intrigued with how networking and the internet works. I asks a lot of questions, write a lot of notes down, and spends hours creating labs on my home server. My passion for learning often leads me down rabbit holes of information, some useless and some that really makes technologies click and help me teach it to other engineers. With almost 10 years under my belt as of this posting, I feel like I have a good grasp on protocols and would like to give back to others. Even if it’s just one person that reads this.
Why bother with my blog?
A few reasons:
Writing forces clarity. You don’t really understand something until you can explain it well. I have heard this multiple times and believe this to be true. One thing about me is I enjoy getting to teach and work with other engineers, and often times teaching people will lead to questions being asked that you were not expecting. Studying and then teaching (or writing in this case) can expose weaknesses in what you know and force you to come back stronger.
The internet needs more practitioner content. There’s obviously no shortage of vendor documentation (though some are better than others…), but there’s a big gap between “here is how to configure X protocol” and “here is some random thing I learned when i brought down my entire topology in my lab” and I want to fill some of that gap.
Lab notes shouldn’t die with the lab. How many times have you rebuilt the same GNS3, EVE-NG, or CML topology and forgotten how you fixed a specific problem? I have. Too many times.
What you’ll find here
This section is hard for me to explain, because i honestly don’t know where this is headed! Im not a writing expert, nor have I ever blogged before. This page will be a collection of thoughts, teaching, discovery, and just anything I find interesting and relevant!
The name
“Hello, Networking!” is a nod to the classic first program every developer writes: Hello, World!, just with my own twist to it.