Beginning Networking Administration

[XRoader]

Hello,

In the future I would like to take courses in computer networking and security, and later become a network administrator. I have looked on Amazon and seen many books dedicated to everything you could think off. I have shortlisted and re-shortlisted the books I chose to two books:


Sams Teach Yourself Red Hat Linux 9 in 24 Hours
TCP-IP Jumpstart Internet Protocol Basics


I plan to get the Red Hat book because that will be the distribution I will install on this cheap computer I am getting soon. People have told me I need to know all about TCP/IP to be a good administrator. Can anyone suggest any books would be good for me, or general subjects I need to know.

Thanks in Advance
Tom

[cowanrl]

Besides TCP/IP, you should also learn about Ethernet. It's the most common networking technology in use today. You need to know how to physically connect the computers together so they can communicate. Until you have a good physical connection between computers, they can't communicate via TCP/IP. The physical connection is always the first and arguably the most important step.

What looks like an excellent book on Amazon is Ethernet: The Definitive Guide by Charles E Spurgeon. Looking through the table of contents, it should have all the info you need on Ethernet.
I've never read this book but I've read other material by Charles Spurgeon. He sure knows his stuff when it comes to Ethernet.

Another good place to look for reading material is the Linux Documentation Project at:

http://www.tldp.org

Many of the networking HOW-TOs there provide background information as well as step by step instructions.
They also have guide books with more in depth coverage of subject material. One you might benefit from is the Linux Network Administrators Guide at:

http://www.tldp.org/LDP/nag2/index.html

If sure helps if you have multiple "learning" computers you can connect and test with without having to worry about putting somebody out of service. The more the merrier.

Learning about networking is a never ending task. I've been in it for about 13 years now and I'm still learning every day.