Randomly tell me what should I study?

[networkloser]

  I got no idea about what to study. I know even you've got no idea but use your experience and tell me learning what would be useful (Not for exam but in real life as well as a linux admin).
The exam is going to be very easy, so I don't care about exam.

5.5 Application layer: Web (HTTP & HTTPS), File Transfer (FTP, PuTTY, Win SCP), Electronic Mail,
DNS, P2P Applications, Socket Programming, Application server concept, and Concept of traffic
analyzer (MRTG, PRTG, SNMP, Packet tracer, Wireshark).

This comes for 2 marks in our Engineering License Exam 

The questions from here are going to be very easy like this:

https://nec.gov.np/uploads/brochure/QIG1U2wLCB230607051100.pdf

Problem is I've already bought good books on this subject and I am very much interested in learning computer networking.


So, I want to learn them in depth. Can you give me a roadmap of what should I cover in these topics?

For example, while learning about HTTP, what topics should I cover? When learning about DNS, what topics should I cover? These subjects have whole books of their own. But just tell me stuffs that I can learn within 25 pages of a textbook.

[deanwebb]

Looks like this question has been asked in other threads, in the future, just one thread per topic will do.

[networkloser]

Not the same question

[deanwebb]

It actually is. I can see, though, that someone new to the field wouldn't necessarily notice that. But let me explain:

HTTP, DNS, FTP, SMTP, SNMP - those are all TCP/IP protocols, and they're covered at the TCP/IP Guide I referenced in the other threads. It is a remarkable resource, I *strongly* recommend reading it for this and much more: http://www.tcpipguide.com/

Wireshark is a packet capture utility that is built on top of tcpdump. A great resource to start there is https://www.tcpdump.org/ which is the homepage for TCP Dump. I did mention that tool in the other threads, but didn't include a link, so there's my first value-add for this thread.

Now the programming parts are not normally what we deal with here. Typically, we cover the bottom 4 layers of the OSI model. Once we clear the protocol layer, it's the realm of the application developer and end-user. So the portions of the sample questions in the test link you shared and in the curriculum description are examples of what I don't know and where most of us are not proficient. Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/ is where I go to in order to understand anything in that area, and I'd recommend checking out programming and app server questions there. And that's my second value-add, even though it's not my strong area. It's at least a starting point for other research.

For PuTTY and WinSCP, each of those programs has a home page with help files, those are enough to get started with them. Just know that SSH and SCP both use port 22 and that Telnet is an evil that must be abolished - it's plain text, unsecured, unencrypted file transfer and is *exactly* what the cyberattackers are looking for.

But no worries on giving answers, it's just easier for us to follow if all the questions you have about learning are in the same thread, makes it easier for all of us helping out to follow.

And welcome to the forums, by the way! Good to have you here!

[icecream-guy]

We'll as a DNS Host Master for a large US Federal Agency, you are NOT going to learn DNS in 25 pages or less, DNS is a very complicated infrastructure. especially these days with all the ways to hack DNS, and all the hoops one must jump thru to avoid vulnerabilities. People have entire careers where all they do is DNS. even "DNS for Dummies is like 368 pages.

if you want *nix related,  most certainly you would be running Bind under *nix. "DNS and BIND" by Cricket Liu (Author), Paul Albitz (Author) is a very good book. ~640 pages.

for DNS you will need to understand DKIM, DMARC, DNSSEC zone signing, SOA records, CAA records, just to keep your environment safe.  this goes well beyond the usual A, AAAA, CNAME, TXT, PTR records

[deanwebb]

To be sure, if you're at an entry level, going to tech bibles for a specific area is going to be overkill - unless you are truly interested in the specialty. That's why I didn't recommend Brown's book on 802.1X even though it's one of *the* best tech books I've ever read. It's too niche for a beginner.

What the syllabus above is asking for is beginner-level. Just know that icecream-guy is right - you can get much, much, MUCH deeper into every one of those topics.