(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best computer networks & apis books

Code is also a good book. If you want textbooks:

This is a good one for computer architecture. And there's a companion course/website at www.nand2tetris.org. https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building-Principles/dp/0262640686/ref=ed_oe_p

I like this one as far as operating systems go: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1118063333/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

For learning programming, I would check out courses at www.udemy.com. But be mindful of ratings & reviews because the quality of courses can vary pretty drastically. But I've had good experiences there. www.udacity.com also has great courses. They offer paid nanodegrees but you can take every individual course free of charge. www.teamtreehouse.com is another good website

If you're interested in networking, this is a good book for starters: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0768685761/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

Any A+/Network+ certification books or courses would also be a great way to learn networking and computer hardware

Those are pretty big topics in tech & computer science. There's a ton of stuff to learn. I've been studying this stuff for probably 2-3 years and sometimes I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. Let me know if that helps & if there are other topics you'd want book recommendations on! :)

In my opinion; every book in this bundle is a bag of shit.

Here's a list of reputable books, again in my opinion (All links are Non-Affiliate Links):

Web Hacking:

The Web Hackers Handbook (Link)

Infrastructure:

Network Security Assessment (Link)

Please Note: The examples in the book are dated (even though it's been updated to v3), but this book is the best for learning Infrastructure Testing Methodology.

General:

Hacking: The Art of Exploitation (Link)

Grey Hat Hacking (Link)

Linux:

Hacking Exposed: Linux (I don't have a link to a specific book as there are many editions / revisions for this book. Please read the reviews for the edition you want to purchase)

Metasploit:

I recommend the online course "Metaspliot Unleashed" (Link) as opposed to buying the book (Link).

Nmap:

The man pages. The book (Link) is a great reference and looks great on the bookshelf. The reality is, using Nmap is like baking a cake. There are too many variables involved in running the perfect portscan, every environment is different and as such will require tweaking to run efficiently.

Malware Analysis:

Practical Malware Analysis (Link)

The book is old, but the methodology is rock solid.

Programming / Scripting:

Python: Automate the Boring Stuff (Link)

Hope that helps.

My .02 would be to start with the CCNA Route/Switch curriculum and then branch from there. It will give you a very strong foundation to start and allow you to move into pretty much anything (Unified Communications, Video, Security, Service Provider, Data Center ect.)

Get your hands on the following books as well as these lab manuals:

http://www.amazon.com/Routing-Switching-200-120-Official-Library/dp/1587143879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381429380&sr=8-1&keywords=ccna+routing+and+switching

http://www.amazon.com/Routing-Switching-Essentials-Manual-Companion/dp/1587133202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381429405&sr=8-1&keywords=ccna+routing+and+switching+lab+manual

Next, you will need either some gear or something virtual for you to practice with. If you can't afford actual hardware, get GNS3

http://www.gns3.net/download/

GNS 3 doesn't really do switching (VTP, Spanning Tree, VLAN's) but you can do pretty much anything routing related you need to (especially at the CCNA level).

For switching, you need find Packet Tracer. Packet Tracer will allow you to do pretty much everything with the exception of Frame Relay and more in depth security.

Sorry to promote so much Cisco, but I do draw a paycheck from them every two weeks and they do a great job of making their entry level stuff accessible. If you have any questions, please feel free to message me.

What are the position's responsibilities? What is the environment like (number of workstations/servers)? Is there already an SCCM environment in operation? If so, is it 2007/2012/2012 SP1/2012 R2? Is there a team supporting SCCM or would it just be you?

If you're going to be the admin, packaging expect, deployment admin, and sole tech support and you have no experience yourself...that'll be a big learning curve. It's not impossible, but it'll be a lot of research.

Microsoft's Virtual Academy is great.

If you like books, the "Mastering" and "Unleashed" books are two of my favorites. There's a lot of great blogs out there for System Center, too--System Center Central is my default stop, but of course /r/sccm is great too!

And for any questions that you can't get answered via any of those methods, the Technet forums are invaluable. You'll get to be on a first name basis with some of the MVPs, they're phenomenal.

> Virtually any router/firewall can do full cone, that's basically the easiest form of NAT developed which just means 1:1 IP/port mapping

This is not my understanding of the term, though it's not the first time I've seen the assertion that "full cone" means 1:1 NAT.

I think that RFC 3489 meant a dynamic NAT when describing the NAT types, but didn't explicitly say so. Other parts of the document refer to NAT bindings associated with client requests, binding timeouts, "overload", etc...

The usage I'm more familiar with (and the one these devs want) is a dynamic (overload) NAT with sloppy matching of reply traffic so that any external IP:port combination can generate traffic toward the dynamic mapping and it will be accepted.

At any rate, the feature they're asking for is not generally available on the sort of router/firewall boxes with which I'm familiar.

edit: This except makes clear that "full cone" is a dynamic, overload (source) NAT which allows any internet host to use the dynamically created pinhole/mapping, and is a different animal than 1:1

> Source NAT is a many:1 NAT that can map many IP addresses to one or more addresses, but not in a 1:1 fashion like static NAT. This NAT is dynamically allocated in real time based on the available IP addresses and ports in the pool. Unlike static NAT, there is no reverse entry so to speak (well, there is one exception with full cone NAT, but that is outside the scope of this book).

"cone" as a term doesn't make much sense when talking about a 1:1 NAT, but does (sort of) describe the situation where one outbound packet can allow replies from anywhere on the internet.

I liked

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1430230037?pc_redir=1405047805&robot_redir=1

It's starts small and simple and builds on itself very well.


I would also encourage you to make another website with tornado or django. I really enjoy web dev in python and there are a lot of job opportunities in that popping up right now. You should also be using virtualenv. For data analysis you should def checkout Pandas and ipython. You can maybe even integrate your interests. For example make a script that scrapes a bunch of data from the web and displays it in cool graphs. I would also recommend getting a 5$ a month Linux server off for example digital ocean. Learn how to ssh and transfer files to it. You can start running some bots or website on it also.

Hope this helps good luck.

I'd recommend any Linux 101 book geared at whatever distribution you're offering. Many aren't expensive, and you don't need the latest and greatest book unless you want it to include some specific feature (maybe the latest and greatest GNOME).

I used some version of this book years ago, probably this version TBH. It came with a Knoppix and Fedora 14 (I think) CD. https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Using-Networking-Course-Technology/dp/1418837237/ref=pd_sim_14_6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=TYAXJM1QW61ZCH6AKYZA

I also liked this book a teacher had us use for another class, it goes into some more depth though, may be outside what you need.
https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Administration-Beginners-Guide-Seventh/dp/0071845364/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1483483869&sr=8-17&keywords=linux+101

Then of course there's the Linux Bible too, there's some good info in there, I don't think it covers SUSE though.


I feel for *nix, you need users to have some desire to learn other than someone telling them they should do it. I liked having a textbook with problems to solve at the end of chapters. Doing it in a class was helpful too, had a bit of competition with others over who could do something with at little work as possible (one liners and such)

10000 limit again. Reserving this comment for the Programming section:

PROGRAMMING
Gray Hat Python: Python Programming for Hackers and Reverse Engineers
Beginning Python
The Python Standard Library by Example (Developer's Library)
Shell Scripting
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach
Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible, Second Edition
Wicked Cool Shell Scripts
sed & awk (2nd Edition)
The Ruby Programming Language
Beginning Ruby: From Novice to Professional
Ruby on Rails 3 Tutorial: Learn Rails by Example
Agile Web Development with Rails
Automating Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Windows PowerShell 2.0
Pragmatic Guide to Subversion
Programming Perl
C++ Primer Plus
The AWK Programming Language thanks sjhill
Modern Perl thanks three18ti
High-Order Perl thanks three18ti
The Art of Scalability thanks mr_chip
Scalability Rules thanks mr_chip
Continuous Delivery thanks mr_chip
The Varnish Book thanks mr_chip

> Are the books any good?

It's been years since I looked at them but they used to be mediocre.

Bonus Data! Microsoft Visual C# Step by Step (9th Edition) (Developer Reference) 9th Edition from Microsoft Press has 11 reviews averaging to 3.7 out of 5.

This search for C# on Amazon shows C# books ranked by average customer review. Some of them are too old. I don't know what to recommend.

I find it amusing, though, that C# 6.0 in a Nutshell is 1136 pages long. That's a BIG friggin' nutshell. :)

Absolutely love being a pentester and the cyber security industry. If you are willing to put in the time and study it can be very rewarding. CEH is a good step in the right direction and should open doors for you.
For entry level positions, pentesting is usually split into two areas, web application and internal/external infrastructure. It's good to have knowledge of both but it's worth choosing which area interests you the most. Personally, I specialise in web applications & API and there is a lot of online resources to help you. (As you have mentioned owasp top 10, I'll assume web apps is your interest)


The best way to learn a vulnerability and get a good understanding is to create vulnerable web pages (this also gives you something to take into an interview). I would suggest doing some basic LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, Mysql, PHP) - Don't let this put you off as it's actually pretty simple. If you can make a few vulnerable pages to display vulnerabilities, you will fly through entry level interviews.


it's really simple to do.. Here is a form that is vulnerable to cross-site scripting. (a few lines of php with some html)
---

<form method="POST" action="">

<p> <input type="text" name="xss"/></p>

<input type="submit">

<?php
$value = $_POST['xss'];
echo $value;
?>

Reading Material:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Web-Application-Hackers-Handbook-Exploiting/dp/1118026470

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Network-Security-Assessment-Know-Your/dp/149191095X


Practical learning
DVWA (Damn Vulnerable Web App) - Purposely vulnerable web pages to practice exploiting.
http://www.dvwa.co.uk/


Once you have a bit of experience have a look at hackthebox

https://www.hackthebox.eu/

Ok let me offer my advice as a 12+ years of IT experience and recently inducted I to the SCCM admin world.

As far as SCCM, if you can fake it, I would be hugely impressed. If they already have the SCCM environment, then is possible you might be able to. I have a kindle book that I could loan you if you'd like. It's a mastering SCCM book that's pretty awesome:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/111882170X?pc_redir=1408853752&robot_redir=1

If you have experience in SMS this shouldn't be too bad. If the environment isn't built yet, it's hugely difficult (SQL, IIS etc).

You need to figure out what your best at and work towards it. Let me know if I can be of any help. I'm currently a sys admin at a corporation. AD GPO SCCM etc

Wait, wait, wait...this is too good. You think it's ridiculous that someone recommended a book from 7 years ago when the edition you recommended is from 10 years ago? Especially when the page you linked indicates there's an update?

N-1kyz, don't let Cranky's inability to encourage newcomer's to this profession dissuade you. Thomas Limoncelli is fairly well-respected, and a great resource. That said, if you're looking for hands-on "type X to get Y result", you'll probably need to look at books with vSphere in the title where VMWare is concerned. This looks like a decent-ish one: https://www.amazon.com/VMware-vSphere-Host-Resources-Deep/dp/1540873064/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500228935&sr=8-1&keywords=vsphere

Although I would recommend a Safari Books subscription for you as you will likely learn new terms and may want to jump around to a few different books to flesh out your early career.

here is my 2c

it is crucial that you understand subnet masking as it's like 70% of ipv4 networking and unfortunately the first thing you need to wrap your brain around as you will be working with VLSM in most networking labs/scenarios. download this pdf and just start plugging along..

Sormcontrol.net is a nice online tool to help with learning subnets.


once you finish that workbook and feel comfortable with variable length subnets, start working on these problems in your spare time and at your own pace. your goal should be to solve any single subnetting problem within 30 seconds.


now that you understand a bit of subnetting, you need to begin learning the OSI-model, focus mainly on the layers 1 (sending bits across a medium), 2 (mac address switching) ,3 (ip routing), and 4 (tcp, udp, and icmp ports). here are two of my favorite beginners books to networking.
Microsoft Windows Networking Essentials, &
Cisco Introduction to Networks V6


Once you've read those books you should be ready to learn routing and switching. Focus your attention here to static routing, dhcp, nat, basic ACLs, and to understanding switchports and vlan related things like trunking and routing on a stick.

Next book you want to read is going to be on dynamic routing and scaling networks for large environments.This is where you delve into dynamic routing protocols (RIP, EIGRP, OSPF) and redundancy/failover protocols such as spanning-tree, etherchannel, and HSRP.


This is a nice book to read along the way and to sort of tie all of the knowledge you've learned so far together into short succinct chapters.

Download GNS3 or Packet Tracer if you want to simulate networks and labs at your desktop. You can learn a lot about the concepts and protocols presented in the books by searching on youtube things like "GNS3 dhcp" or "Packet Tracer dhcp".

I don't know about CBT nuggets, but just focus on what I've linked you and if you are going to follow anything online, the topic of routing and switching is the way to go as it is fundamental. Study like you are trying to pass the CCENT exam and then study for the CCNA exam.

To answer your question, that depends on what cool shit you're trying to learn!

Udemy has been hit or miss for me, my favorite programming class on there was an embedded systems class taught by the head of the department at Valpo. If that's something you're interested in I can send you the link. Very straightforward, well done, and I feel that I retained/learned a lot from the lectures.

As for learning Linux specifically, I'm working through a three class series on it offered by my local community college. While there's definitely something to be said for having a structure and being accountable, the real gem from the class is the textbook. It's incredibly well written and covers the basics very effectively. If you're interested it's called:

Guide to UNIX using Linux (I have the 4th edition). ISBN - 13: 978-1-4188-3723-5, ISBN - 10: 1-4188-3723-7 Amazon Link

Head First Networking book


Also not a video but a book that puts most of the concepts in a quick to read and easy to understand format. It can come off as a little cheesy but compared to the often boring and over complex books it was a nice review for me and it starts from the basics which too often people skip or gloss over.

If you want to be a good network engineer, understand it from the bottom up, understand from the hardware, to the packet, then to all the routing and rules and so on. Don't be that guy that just knows a few concepts and some troubleshooting tips but never really knows why the tricks work or how the fixes actually work. I give this advice to techs and software devs too, makes you better in every area to know the system from the ground up.

I would also like to take the time to plug a few resources, if I may, that have greatly assisted me throughout my career.

1. Of course, Cisco Press. Wendell Odom especially.
   
2. Non-Cisco Press, Todd Lamlle's CCNA book is great!
   
3. CBT Nuggets!! Jeremy Cioara and Keith Barker.
   
4. Tech Exams Forums!! For answers to your questions regarding certification, study material, etc, from a variety of vendor certs. Or, to just read motivating success stories!!
   
5. Internetworking Experts (INE!) That link should direct you to their free CCNA video course. If that doesn't work for you, simply register an account with them and search for the CCNA video course.
   
6. Thomas Limoncelli's The Practice of Systems and Network Administration
   
7. Gary A Donahue's Network Warrior
   
8. Jeff Doyle's CCIE Professional Development Routing TCP/IP Vol. 1 or 2
   
9. Douglas E. Comer's Internetworking with TCP/IP
   
10. GNS3!! Free Cisco Router and ASA Emulation!! Just make sure you have access to Cisco IOS software!
    
11. Andrew S. Tanenbaum's Computer Networks.
    
12. Jeremy Stretch and PacketLife!! Also, Jeremy's network Cheat Sheets!
    
13. Firewall.cx!!
    
14. Cisco's Command Lookup Tool! Requires login, but nonetheless, a great resource for your Cisco engineers when you just NEED to know how the hell a particular command works.
    
15. Priscilla Oppenheimer's Top-Down Network Design
    
16. I've heard the folks at /r/networking are pretty legit.

I think very poorly of the cyber security courses offered (except NUS) in Singapore, as the things they teach are not aligned with the industry practices - either outdated or just not practical enough.

Having said that, if you have the time, I would suggest taking the SIT degree instead of the diplomas (waste of time IMO) and hopefully it provides you the fundamentals (programming, network and system administration) and be exposed to some other topics in cybersecurity.

If you are doing a career switch, I suppose you want to get up to speed fast by focusing on the need to have knowledge as a baseline. I would suggest taking the time to go through these stuff in details, setup your labs and practice the stuff

1. https://www.cybrary.it/course/comptia-network-plus/
   
2. https://www.amazon.com/Kali-Linux-Revealed-Penetration-Distribution/dp/0997615605
   
3. https://www.amazon.com/Network-Security-Assessment-Know-Your/dp/149191095X
   
4. https://www.amazon.com/Web-Application-Hackers-Handbook-Exploiting/dp/1118026470
   
   Other wise, there are hands on courses and industry certifications that you can take online at your own pace and employers look out for such as:
   
   
5. https://www.elearnsecurity.com/training_paths/ (eLearnSecurity is good because they have a progression path from student onwards )
   
6. https://www.offensive-security.com/information-security-certifications/oscp-offensive-security-certified-professional/ (I don't encourage going for this as a starter unless you already have some fundamental knowledge and skillets for system administrations but this is highly recognised in the industry)
   
7. You can also go for SANS or what not, I think it's just too expensive for my liking.
   
   There is no one path to becoming a good pentester. However from my observations, folks who tend to be more in demands (with or without certifications/formal educations) are those who can display the ability to learn stuff on their own. This is an industry of skills and continuous learning. For employers that pay top dollar and provide time for training, learning and research, they are looking for folks who can display those stuff through actions.
   
   ​
   
   Source: Pentester

The TCP/IP Guide - It's a little dated these days and barely touches IPv6, but it's a good, quick look at a lot of the glue services that you will eventually need to understand and troubleshoot: DNS, SNMP, NTP, etc.

TCP/IP Illustrated, VOL 1 - Here's where we get into the nitty gritty. This shows you what is happening in those packets that cross the wire. Invaluable if you go onto doing Performance Engineering functions later on, but still good.

NMAP Network Scanning - NMAP is a godsend if you don't have remote login rights but you need to see what's happening on the far end of the connection.

Wireshark Network Analysis - Most useful tool in your toolbox, IF you can use it, for proving the negative to your customers. At some point you're going to be faced with an angry mob in Dockers and Polos who want to know "WHY MY THING NOT WORK?". This is the book that will let you point to their box and go "Well, as soon as the far side sends a SYN/ACK your box sends a FIN and kills the connection."

Learning the bash shell - You're a network engineer, you're going to be using Linux boxes as jump boxes for the rest of your life. Shell scripting will let you write up handy little tools to make your life easier. Boss wants to blackhole China at the edge? Write a quick script to pull all of the CN netblocks from the free FTP server APNIC owns, chop it up in sed and AWK, throw a little regex in for seasoning and you're done. And when he comes back in 30 days for an updated list? Boom, it's done even faster.

The vendor specific books are nice, but I can't tell you how many network engineers I've run across who couldn't tell me how DNS worked or how a three way handshake worked or couldn't write a simple script in Bash to bang out 300 port configs in 30 seconds. There are a shit ton of paper CCIEs out there, but those books up there will make you stand out.

Hmm I would suggest Introduction to Networks v6 Companion Guide or ICND1.

I learned at school but Cisco is the reference for networks, and getting CCNA is like having the common basis that every IT Network guy should know. Well, not exactly having the CCNA as a cert but knowing all the stuff they talk about.

Be careful though, ICND1+ICND2 = CCNA, so the 2^nd book isn't enough.

If by chance you know French, try this one. He is the reference for any beginner as he explains the concepts. Unfortunately I found no translation of it, only for his most recent books (which are more specific). And this website.

Good luck

TIL ZenOSS was a nicely packaged Cacti/Nagios. I've always gone with Nagios/Cacti combos I set up myself... before Zabbix. Still nice to know going forward. Thanks!

I also was given this book: Nagios: System and Network Monitoring and while we didn't go the Nagios route, it was very beneficial too.

Honestly this book by Tyler Hart is very good for MikroTik beginners, and his second book in the series is good as well.

Networking with MikroTik: MTCNA Study Guide:

https://www.amazon.com/Networking-MikroTik-MTCNA-Study-Guide/dp/1973206358/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=mikrotik&qid=1565992614&s=books&sr=1-1

I got a lot of value out of this book. You'll need to understanding networking fairly well if you want to be a decent VMware engineer.

https://www.amazon.com/Networking-VMware-Administrators-Press-Technology/dp/0133511081

Chris Wahl has a great blog as well: http://wahlnetwork.com/

What is your programming background? Do you have any experience in other languages/frameworks?

I haven't used the book you mentioned, but these have been pretty helpful (listed in order of brain-melting complexity):

1. https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Visual-Step-Developer-Reference/dp/1509307761/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=WBZV8Q8BWT8APSVY7YPY
   
   
2. https://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Code-via-principles-Developer/dp/0735683204/ref=sr_1_43?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540568110&sr=1-43&keywords=C%23
   
   
3. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735685355/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This article is the most up to date information on the subject you are likely to find out in the blogs. It's written specific to vSphere 6.5, which is the most recent major version of vSphere as of this writing. Tons of other information out there is old and, while it may not be wrong, it might have bits and pieces that have changed since they were written.

If you really want a deep dive on the subject and more details than what everyone in this thread is providing, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of the Host Resources Deep Dive for vSphere 6.5 that takes these topics as far as you want to understand them. NUMA is covered extensively in the book (I read it a while back) and will give you so many performance tuning options that you'll wish you had enough time to test them all. :)

Normal person is relative. Ha! However, I can tell you Wireshark is my go to for troubleshooting complex application/network problems.

I highly recommend Laura Chappelle books. This is my favorite, well worth the cost. Wireshark Network Analysis (Second Edition): The Official Wireshark Certified Network Analyst Study Guide https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008G65O7O/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_sNcFyb8ZXZ6KS

Basically, here's what you need to get your CCNA:

The official certification guide

The Todd Lammle CCNA study guide.

The CCNA lab manual. Especially work on the troubleshooting labs.

And you'll need a copy of Packet Tracer software, on which you can do all of the labs and everything you'll need for the exam. You don't need real world hardware to do the CCNA. It's nice, sure, but can be costly. If you want a copy of Packet Tracer, try to find a torrent because it's normally only available to Cisco students and whatnot. If you really would like, PM me and I will find you a copy once I get home from work.

Anyways, with all of this and a good amount of studying and self-discipline, you should be fine. You don't need this online course (That expires after a year, too!)

>I've played around with MPLS in lab environments, and got it working but only in its most basic form, and without truly understanding what's happening in the background.

mpls ip under global and interfaces <-- MPLS EXPERT



Here's a good PDF overview from NANOG titled "MPLS for Dummies."

I also enjoyed CBT Nuggets MPLS Fundamentals course.

Then this book -- MPLS Fundamentals -- is highly rated. (at least on Amazon)

I do see your point to that. As for the different RAID types, I have a basic understanding, but not a professional's grasp. I'd definitely have to look to reference for usage, but I wouldn't feel completely out of my depth.

What would you recommend I should look at in regards to "learning the important stuff?" I've looked up the bootcamp link in the sidebar and plan on getting one of the books mentioned there for starters.

It all ties together. If you want to work in IT, network and hardware certifications are quite valuable.

So let's start with networking. I recommend starting with a book like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Networking-Hours-Edition/dp/0768685761

Once you identify more specific things within networking that you want to learn, you can then get more in depth by finding resources online, and in books.

I think in that case you're better off finding a book somewhere. Tanenbaum's "Computer Networks" book is one that I enjoyed reading a lot (even the outdated stuff like Token Ring networks). It goes really deep into how networks work.

Check out Foundations of Python Network Programming

> This book will be of interest to python programmers who need to program networked applications using Python. From web application developers, to systems integrators, to system administrators—this book has everything you need to know.

>This book assumes that you know how to program in Python, but does not assume that you know anything about networking. If you have used something like a web browser before, and are vaguely aware that your computer talks to other computers in order to display web pages, then you should be ready to start reading this book.

I'm glad you think my book looks promising - please purchase a legitimate copy either on my website or on Amazon.

I hope Tom Limoncelli doesn't mind me quoting from his book, but there's a brief section from The Practice of System and Network Administration about this:

Moving to/Opening a New Building

• Four weeks or more in advance, get access to the new space to build the infrastructure.
  
• Use radios or walkie-talkies for communicating inside the building—Chapter 6 and Section 20.1.7.3.
  
• Use a personal digital assistant (PDA) or nonelectronic organizer—Section 32.1.2.
  
• Order WAN and Internet service provider (ISP) network connections 2–3 months in advance.
  
• Communicate to the powers that be that WAN and ISP connections will take months to order and must be done soon.
  
• Prewire the offices with network jacks during, not after, construction—Section 7.1.4.
  
• Work with a moving company that can help plan the move.
  
• Designate one person to keep and maintain a master list of everyone who is moving and his or her new office number, cubicle designation, or other location.
  
• Pick a day on which to freeze the master list. Give copies of the frozen list to the moving company, use the list for printing labels, and so on. If someone’s location is to be changed after this date, don’t try to chase down and update all the list copies that have been distributed. Move the person as the master list dictates, and schedule a second move for that person after the main move.
  
• Give each person a sheet of 12 labels preprinted with his or her name and new location for labeling boxes, bags, and personal computer (PC). (If you don’t want to do this, at least give people specific instructions as to what to write on each box so it reaches the right destination.)
  
• Give each person a plastic bag big enough for all the PC cables. Technical people can decable and reconnect their PCs on arrival; technicians can do so for nontechnical people.
  
• Always order more boxes than you think you’ll be moving.
  
• Don’t use cardboard boxes; instead, use plastic crates that can be reused.
  
  
  Limoncelli, Thomas A.; Christina J. Hogan; Strata R. Chalup (2007-07-05). The Practice of System and Network Administration (2nd Edition) (pp. 5-6). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.

I know this isn't the answer you are looking for, but this book might be worth looking in to. I haven't received my copy yet, but so far it seems to have been getting quite good reviews from the VMWare community.

Vendor neutral and probably the best/most frequently recommended book:

MPLS-Enabled Applications: Emerging Developments and New Technologies

Very good Cisco-centric MPLS book:

MPLS Fundamentals

The gold standard, or so I hear, for L2VPN (I believe it's Alcatel/Juniper heavy):

Designing and Implementing IP/MPLS-Based Ethernet Layer 2 VPN Services: An Advanced Guide for VPLS and VLL

A quick google for "low level python network programming book" found this:

https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Python-Network-Programming-comprehensive/dp/1430230037

I haven't read it, but at least one of the author (Brandon Rhodes) is known for giving good talks about Python. So i'd suggest you go with that.

Check this book out:

http://amzn.com/0596003528

There are lots of great resources online as well.

Other books I can recommend from O'Reilly are JunOS Enterprise Routing, JunOS Enterprise Switching, and Juniper SRX Series. I bought them all as epubs when O'Reilly was still selling them directly and I have found them very useful for my day to day work with Juniper gear.

When I said "the network" I meant the physical network. The virtual port will be the secondary's assigned virtual port of course.

The hosts can be connected to the same or to different physical switches, but they'd be connected to the same logical networks/vlans. In either case, the physical switchs will eventually see a frame from the VM on a physical port it had not before. When this happens the switch will add the source MAC address of the VM to it's forwarding table indicating that "this MAC exists on port N". Future frames destined for the VM's MAC will now be sent to this new port.

There is a NIC Teaming policy for each vSwitch called "Notify Switches" related to this. If this policy is enabled the destination host will send out frames with the MAC of the incoming VM so that the physical switches know ahead of time to start sending frames destined for the VM's MAC to the new physical port. This way when the VM stops executing on the source host and starts executing on the destination host, there will be a much smaller number of packets that potentially don't make it to the VM. I'm not sure if this settings applies to FT fail over events, but it would be easy to test with the right equipment in a lab.

If you're interested in knowing more about networking from the perspective of a VMware administrator check out this book. It starts from the very basics of networking (first 6 chapters) and then goes from there to vSphere specific topics. Would probably be a good read for you.

Digital Forensic workbook is a great source for building foundational knowledge on many of the general computer forensic techniques. It covers info such as file system forensics, acquisition, software write blocking, registry analysis, email analysis, internet history analysis, recovering data in unallocated space, etc. Labs are included with the book so you can test the content learned against sample data.

Learning Malware Analysis Guides you through static analysis, dynamic analysis, using IDA pro, and other dismembers to determine the intent of malicious files.

Practical Malware Analysis

Wireshark Network Analysis

The Practice of System & Network Administration chapters 6 & 7 will definitely help you.

I am sure many people will add to this but what I find is the biggest gap is not having a good base of understanding of why all of this "Infrastructure" is needed.

There is so much content to learn and I am not even scratching the surface. There is much to learn and you are not alone.

Hands-on labs
https://labs.hol.vmware.com/HOL/catalogs/catalog/1212

Physical networking (My teacher)
https://www.pluralsight.com/authors/ross-bagurdes

Virtual Networking
https://www.amazon.com/Networking-VMware-Administrators-Press-Technology/dp/0133511081

Storage
https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-VMware-vSphere-Storage-Victor-ebook/dp/B00YSIL6HQ

vSAN
https://www.amazon.com/VMware-vSAN-6-7-Deep-Dive-ebook/dp/B07L8CNZ53

NSX
https://blogs.vmware.com/networkvirtualization/2018/10/nsx-vmworld-2018-europe-the-technical-geek-guide.html/

ESXi Deep dive
https://pages.rubrik.com/host-resources-deep-dive_request.html

vVols are making a comeback
https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2019/07/25/vvols-vmworld-2019/

Project pacific
https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2019/09/project-pacific-at-tech-field-day-extra-at-vmworld-2019.html

Good mentions
https://storagehub.vmware.com/
https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/virtual_networking_concepts.pdf

And any VMware feature you need a walkthrough
https://featurewalkthrough.vmware.com/

Edit: adding newest deep dive for Pacific https://cormachogan.com/2019/11/22/project-pacific-vmworld-2019-deep-dive-updates/

Nagios is really easy to manage.. however, if you find yourself struggling with it, you should read at least the official documentation[1], or any of these books[2,3].. in fact, I encourage to read the books.

[1] http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/nagioscore/4/en/toc.html
[2] http://www.amazon.com/Nagios-Network-Monitoring-Wolfgang-Barth/dp/1593271794
[3] http://www.amazon.com/Building-Monitoring-Infrastructure-Nagios-Josephsen/dp/0132236931

I actually just started reading MPLS Fundamentals from Cisco Press. I'm several chapters in and so far I've found it to be clear, comprehensive, and very informative.

Purchase copies of both the Clustering Deep Dive and Host Resources Deep Dive books. You can also find digital copies from Rubrik for free at the following:

​

https://pages.rubrik.com/host-resources-deep-dive_request.html

https://pages.rubrik.com/clustering-deep-dive-ebook.html

​

If you're going to run vSAN there is also a vSAN Deep Dive book available.

​

Some very good books on networking basics:

Computer Networks

TCP/IP Illustrated

I'm glad you found your answer. For complete (very) documentation on Nagios I suggest this book. It's what got me really started.

Thanks I'll start with that. Also what's your guys opinion on the tanenbaum's book? https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Networks-Tanenbaum-International-Economy/dp/9332518742

I liked this one. http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Networking-Al-Anderson/dp/0596521553

This is actually the model they use in this book, which I highly recommend.

Also if you buy the OCG (Official Cert Guide), there are companion books that you can get also, the companion guides reference workbooks. The workbooks have labs and such written out that you can do in Packet Tracer / GNS3 / VIRL / Physical.

Here are Amazon links to all of the official Cisco books for CCENT (ICND-1):

• OCG 100-105
  
• Introduction to Networks v6
  
• Introduction to Networks v5.1 Lab Manual
  
• Routing and Switching Essentials v6
  
• Routing and Switching Essentials - Labs & Study Guide
  

And once you’ve finished that and you’re ready for the Masters class:

VMware vSphere 6.5 Host Resources Deep Dive

It's very complicated.

Read: http://www.amazon.com/Internetworking-TCP-Volume-One-Edition/dp/013608530X

The author was one of the people involved with the creation of the internet.

We normally recommend Computer Networks by Andy Tanenbaum as a good place to start.

Anyway, I was just blowing you some shit. We're not normally this mean.

This book isn’t bad. I have an older version and thought it was really easy to follow along.

Microsoft has this as well.

This book explains more than you ever want to know

https://www.amazon.com/Vmware-Vsphere-Host-Resources-Deep/dp/1540873064/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=vsphere+deep+dive&qid=1571948440&sr=8-1

I used to take things apart as a kid; VCRs, RC cars, TVs, PCs, etc.. just to see how they worked. Went to school for 2.5 years learning programming (C++, Java, HTML (if you can call that programming)), hated that and the personalities (I;m introverted but programmers / devs are next level introverts). Transferred to a music track at another school and finished with my BA. Got a job in music, but missed IT so I applied for a business analyst role at the same company - worked with devs doing light SQL work and end users assisting in the deployment of an internal CRM. Moved on from there to an internal IT spot, then after that an MSP - another MSP, which is what I'm doing now.

Got experience in VMware (and VDI), a bit of Azure, lots of onsite support and have done work for high profile clients, celebrities, CEOs, etc.. basically do what you need to do to get the job done. I'm constantly learning, the next stuff I want to learn is networking - as in high level network - using the TCP/IP Guide (https://www.amazon.com/TCP-Guide-Comprehensive-Illustrated-Protocols/dp/159327047X/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=tcpip+guide&qid=1573236473&s=books&sr=1-3) and Internetworking (https://www.amazon.com/Internetworking-TCP-IP-One-6th/dp/013608530X)

Also need a lot of Linux experience since VMware and Cisco products are based off that. Start with the fundamentals and go from there.

I fucking love what I do. I have an A+ cert from years ago, but haven't bother with anything since. I do a lot of work for hedge funds now so it's more who you know than what you know - I'd like to get a cert in the future but don't really have the time. If you have any questions or want me to take a glance at your resume just send me a message and I'll shoot over my email.

And full disclosure, IT has a lot of bullshit you need to deal with, if you can't handle that or deal with it the correct way (read: just deal with it) then you're gonna have a bad time - shit will break, things will fail, backups will take huge dumps, but you just have to have the mindset that you can fix it or know where and how to find the answer (vendor support tickets are your best friend - specific to Cisco TAC. lol)

Internetworking with TCP/IP by Comer. Three volumes, but volume I is sufficient for what you want.

http://www.amazon.com/Internetworking-TCP-Volume-One-Edition/dp/013608530X

Wireshark do doo dododoDOOdoot wireshark

Stevens. Along with the Douglass Comer book it’s considered the de-facto standard of networking texts.

Stevens:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP/IP_Illustrated

Comer:
https://www.amazon.com/Internetworking-TCP-IP-One-6th/dp/013608530X

Douglas Comer.

https://www.amazon.com/Internetworking-TCP-IP-One-6th/dp/013608530X

Get this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Edition-ebook/dp/B004JLMUJ0

I can suggest that you can read Foundations of Python Network Programming. (http://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Python-Network-Programming-comprehensive/dp/1430230037) It covers dozens of networking subjects...

http://www.amazon.com/Nagios-Network-Monitoring-Wolfgang-Barth/dp/1593271794/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345369768&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=Nagios%3A+System+and+Network+Monitoring+3rd

this one but it's probably outdated by now.

Start with Andrew Tannenbaum's book?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004JLMUJ0 for the lazy