(Part 3) Best computer networks & apis books according to redditors

I'm glad you're making an attempt to contribute to and share open source, but...

The functions on your front page weren't included in the framework for good reason. You should really read Framework Design Guidelines and then rethink your projects mission.

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.

Networking for Dummies

TCP/IP for Dummies

Unfortunately, you really need to understand the fundamentals to understand a wireshark capture. What you asked is kind of like saying, "I tried to read this book that's only available in French, but I didn't understand it. Is there a step-by-step guide to reading this book?"

The solution: learn the language. Then the meaning of what you're trying to read becomes clear, not because someone explained it to you, but because you understand the language well enough to grasp the meaning.

http://amzn.com/0470450606

EDIT: Adding on to say, why don't you describe the symptoms rather than saying you think it's a DNS issue? My most frustrating service calls are when a customer tells me it's obviously due to Issue A because Google said so, when my research shows that Issue A is a symptom of a completely different problem that you won't find on Google because it's so rare and conflicts with the symptoms of Issue A. This makes me understand why doctors are sad when patients walk in saying they think they have some disorder because <<symptoms>>, when in fact those symptoms can be common to hundreds of unrelated disorders.

http://www.amazon.com/IP-Fundamentals-Everyone-Addressing-Routing/dp/0139754830/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394218924&sr=8-1&keywords=ip+fundamentals

This book is excellent.

For UI on Windows, XAML is the tech to use. A great book that I have always had it’s multiple incarnations is:

WPF 4.5 Unleashed
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0672336979/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_odbEAbVJ4WV5T

Unfortunately it will not teach you MVVM which is the supporting pattern that separates your visual from your underlying data. There are plenty of tutorials for that out there.

As mentioned in the other responses, async/await is the way to do async in .NET now. This book was great for that.

Async in C# 5.0
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1449337163/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_-fbEAb2F57DYJ

Clear, concise, cheap and short. It does the job.

Any questions send me a DM.

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.

https://www.amazon.com/Book-PF-No-Nonsense-OpenBSD-Firewall-ebook/dp/B00O9A7E88/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481714449&sr=8-1&keywords=book+of+pf+openbsd

prgmr.com is run (at least in part) by Luke Crawford, who wrote a book on Xen. His book includes a lot of his real-world experience that he has encountered running prgmr, as well as some of the administration code that prgmr uses.

i still purchased santos OCG book currently reading it, also purchased this book for all the ngfw for work and for the exam:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1587144808/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520838886&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=cisco+ftd&dpPl=1&dpID=51UMwEMLUDL&ref=plSrch

videos:

chris bryant udemy

keith barker cbtnuggets

I always suggest Essential C# Book two simple reason

1. This book identify section with for beginner and advanced learner
   
   2)Almost each section has their stand alone example
   
   ​
   
   When I was new to C#, I would spend everyday 15 to 20 minutes on each section read it, type the code, run the code.
   
   You will not only learn C# but also learn .NET libraries.
   
   For example, the code base I used to work, previous developer used two string with + sign and "\" to create new network path. From this book I learn there is Path.Combine can be used to build new paths. Now you may ask both code works so what's the point. The point is when you use Path.Combine the code is more readable, second now with .NET core out you can easily convert code to run on cross platform.
   
   With C# you can do many thing many way, the ultimate goal is to write maintainable (readable code). Once you gone basic and OO and some Async stuff you can start reading C# in Depth by Jon Skeet to get deeper understanding C#.
   
   ​
   
   Once you are comfortable, you should learn Unit Test and TDD with a testing frame work. I would also spend some time with Mark Seemann's Encapsulation & SOLID course from Pluralsight.

http://www.amazon.com/NX-OS-Cisco-Nexus-Switching-Next-Generation/dp/1587143046/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409263406&sr=8-1&keywords=nx-os

http://www.amazon.com/Data-Center-Virtualization-Fundamentals-Understanding/dp/1587143240/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1409263406&sr=8-4&keywords=nx-os


These are great read's, I reference them almost weekly whenever something weird pops up at work.

This site is ok: http://wpftutorial.net/Home.html
WPF by Adam Nathan is the best book out there: http://www.amazon.com/WPF-4-5-Unleashed-Adam-Nathan/dp/0672336979/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450973915&sr=8-1&keywords=wpf

Ukratko, WPF aplikaciju praviš deklarativnim UI-jem u XML-u i kodom iza koji reaguje na ivente, radi pos'o, itd.. Windows Form aplikacija je sasvim drugi frejmvork sa sopstvenim apstrakcijama i programskim modelom, sve se dešava u kodu. Dve različite .NET UI tehnologije sa istim ciljem, otpr. kao Swing i AWT u Java svetu (ko se seća ovog drugog, nemam pojma da li se to još igde koristi).

Ne postoji jako dobar razlog da danas koristiš Windows Forms, osim ako to nisi koristio do sada i znaš mu sve fore i fazone, a rokovi su pretanki da bi osvajao u procesu novu tehnologiju.

Edit: Ovo je po verovatno najbolja WPF knjiga - WPF Unleashed, tj. bar je bila do pre nekoliko godina, a ovo pamtim kao najbolju Windows Forms knjigu - Windows Forms Programming.

Start with reading the IEEE 802 standard. Then 802.1X. Then move into 802.11.

Matthew Gast authored a couple books, 802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0596100523/) another for 802.11ac (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1449343147). Start with the beginning and step though the 802.11 standard and groups.

While you could “just Google it”, you won’t learn the why and the what - just the how. If you really want to learn it, Gast’s books are really good at walking through history and standards (which they should, he sits on the IEEE 802.11 committee).

> 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.

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!)

FabricPath or UCS Fabric Interconnect?

Here are some good places to start :
http://www.amazon.com/Data-Center-Virtualization-Fundamentals-ebook/dp/B00DGU17F8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1374782612&sr=8-2&keywords=fabricpath

http://www.amazon.com/NX-OS-Cisco-Nexus-Switching-ebook/dp/B00BY87XIO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1374782677&sr=8-3&keywords=fabricpath

Cisco now has a CCNA-DC and CCNP-DC, traning and materials related to these two tracks are going to be relevant to nexus and UCS.

> I think that not enough people understand that programming errors should not be "handled", ever. They should be reported and god damn fixed.

Agreed, completely. One of the many smart points in Microsoft's Framework Design Guidelines is that they specifically call that out: you should not catch InvalidOperationException, ArgumentException, et. al.

> That simply begs for Java-style catch(Exception) {} and hereby I predict it will be misused a great deal.

Hmm, I definitely don't want to encourage that, but I don't know if that slope is as slippery as you fear. I'm not sure how much I can do at the language design level to discourage that.

> Sure, that would work for parseBool, but in the real world, failure modes multiply by the speed of light©

That's a good point. Feedback like this is why I wrote the post.

My thought process was that you can bucket errors either into runtime or catastrophic, and it would only be runtime errors that become returned values. It would definitely be unusable to have every single possible failure mode bleed into the type signature of a function. No one wants to deal with parseBool(text String -> Bool | ParseError | StackOverflowError | OutOfMemoryError | SecurityError | DeadlockError).

That's the main reason to even make that distinction: catastrophic errors are ones that always percolate up a side channel using exceptions.

> What then? (IOW, that's a failure mode that's not explicit and makes function signature misleading for the casual reader.)

In the example, it would just be an exception, so it would unwind until something caught it.

> If not, code can easily be expecting [type1]\, receiving [type2] (not an error), and be burdened with another failure mode (this time, due to a programming error).

If you had a function that returned Success | Error1 | Error2 and you say expecting[Success], it would throw an exception on either error. If there were two success types, you could do expecting[Success1 | Success2] and that would work as expected.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll have to think on it some more.

prgmr.com sells really cheap USA based VPS's. The owner wrote The Book of Xen

I don't know if you want to use a VPS based in the USA for a UK project, but this should give you an idea of what competitive prices are.

Wrote a book on this stuff. AMA. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982131402/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_yHpitb0SM20GJ

http://www.amazon.ca/Wireshark-101-Essential-Network-Analysis/dp/1893939723/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422645255&sr=8-1&keywords=wireshark

The short answer is: it depends heavily on the network and application, but that it's usually bound by either application-layer rendering, or number of round trips (hereafter RTTs), reduced by the amount of parallelism that's possible. RTTs these days often can't be made faster, (networks have gotten smart and fiber isn't getting any faster) and so have to be reduced in number. While protocols have some control over this, it's often application-layer concerns that determine the number of RTTs and how many can be processed in parallel.

Some things that are usually not bottle necks are encryption/TLS overhead (especially on modern networking stacks and modern processors), "fetch" attempts for intelligently cached resources, network fragmentation, routing, DNS, etc. except in pathological edge cases that should be diagnosed separately.

The long answer is: https://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Browser-Networking-performance/dp/1449344763/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474953613&sr=8-1&keywords=high+performance+browser+networking

Udemy course
CWNA
802.11ac
802.11n
802.11 SG
I personally met GT at a Ruckus conference and the dude is sharp. Don't pay the full price (retailmenot) if you enroll. Lots of good info there. You could prob skip the AC guide since that's a little to new for it to be relevant just yet. But def look at the 802.11n literature. This will put you eons ahead of most people.

I'm a first-year CS student and I just started reading TCP/IP for Dummies. Depending on the book's level of accuracy, I think it would be a good introduction for answering these kinds of questions.

So as to not recreate the wheel, Katherine McNamara did a great job putting together a list of training resources on her blog. CCIE Security Materials I took the Zero 2 Hero Security class by Micronics, that did a pretty good job of showing hands on configuration and gave access to a lab for the duration of the class (I think it was 12 weeks). There is also a new Firepower Threat Defense book that is pretty good. I'm still trying to track down my notes of the configuration/product guides that I had to hunt through for the written but if/when I find it I'll let you know.

You can start with the same book I did... seriously

https://www.amazon.com/Networking-Dummies-Doug-Lowe/dp/111925776X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1503420588&sr=8-2&keywords=networking+for+dummies

There was a line in the forward from an older version of the book that stuck with me; "From this moment on everything is your fault"

The Cisco CCNA books are actually pretty good for reference

https://www.amazon.ca/CCENT-ICND1-100-105-Official-Guide/dp/1587205807/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1503420668&sr=8-5&keywords=ccna

https://www.amazon.ca/Routing-Switching-ICND2-200-105-Official/dp/1587205793/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1503420668&sr=8-6&keywords=ccna

https://www.amazon.com/Wireshark-101-Essential-Analysis-Solutions/dp/1893939723

Agreed...these 3 books, in my opinion, are the holy trinity of PowerCLI/vSphere information.

Managing VMware Infrastructure with Windows PowerShell TFM

VMware vSphere PowerCLI Reference: Automating vSphere Administration

Mastering VMware vSphere 5.5

Read (and try to understand):
[Ethernet fundamentals!]
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565926609/ref=oh_details_o08_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
[Internetworking with TCP/IP!]
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0131876716/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Both are good books and essential reading for anyone working in networks (if you want to be any good at it)...

I would skip certs for now, only because you need to get up to speed quickly.

I would check r/sysadmin and see what they think.

if you want some advice for books and such, then I suggest the following

1)

Networking for Dummies: - You can probably get this one free from the library. I think my library has it

https://www.amazon.com/Networking-Dummies-Computer-Tech/dp/111925776X/ref=asc_df_111925776X/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312114711253&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=472462205621134697&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9019032&hvtargid=pla-327835119737&psc=1

This will give you an over view of networking.

2)

The Accidental SysAdmin Handbook: A Primer for Early Level IT Professionals 1st ed. Edition

https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-SysAdmin-Handbook-Primer-Professionals/dp/1484218167

​



Understand the concepts, processes and technologies that will aid in your professional development as a new system administrator. While every information technology culture is specific to its parent organization, there are commonalities that apply to all organizations.

The Accidental SysAdmin Handbook, Second Edition looks at those commonalities and provides a general introduction to critical aspects associated with system administration. It further acts to provide definitions and patterns for common computer terms and acronyms. 

What You Will Learn

• Build and manage home networking and plan more complex network environments
  
• Manage the network layer and service architectures as well as network support plans
  
• Develop a server hardware strategy and understand the physical vs. virtual server ecosystem
  
• Handle data storage, data strategies and directory services, and central account management
  
• Work with DNS, DHCP, IP v4 and IP v6
  
• Deploy workstations and printers
  
• Manage and use antivirus and security management software
  
• Build, manage and work with intranets and Internet support services
  
  Who This Book Is For
  It is assumed that the reader has little to no experience in a professional information technology environment. 
  
  ​
  
  

3. Time Management for System Administrators: Stop Working Late and Start Working Smart 1st Edition
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Time-Management-System-Administrators-Working/dp/0596007833
   
   ​
   
   Please note - I'm not a system administrator

Personally I prefer learning programming languages from physical books, since highlighting is a big part of my learning process. I can definitely, highly recommend Essential C# 7.0 as a fantastic way to learn C# inside and out.

https://www.amazon.com/Essential-7-0-Addison-Wesley-Microsoft-Technology/dp/1509303588

I would start by getting a foundation in basic C# (maybe the first third of the book) before getting into Unity-specific C# so you have a clear distinction between what is C# proper and what is a Unity convention.

Isn't private vlans something totally different ? Here I am just talking about having for example 4 VLANs on the same /24.
I was ready Data Center Virtualization Fundamentals and when explaining the notion of VLAN the author explains that VLANs don't have to be on different networks. From what I understand by using VLANs on the same network range, it is possible to force the traffic to go through some ACLs or filtering. But I am still not totally clear about that.

You should put those in the sidebar.

Here are some useful books:

VMware vSphere PowerCLI Reference: Automating vSphere Administration



Managing VMware Infrastructure with Windows PowerShell TFM


Useful examples for using PowerCLI with vCloud Director:
Geek after five

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

For those wanting to read more, I highly recommend the Browser Networking book that covers WebRTC, STUN, TURN, ICE, and more.

I would recommend The Book of PF: 3rd Edition. Also, even though this page isnt updated any longer it is helpful: http://www.bsdnow.tv/tutorials/openbsd-router

Here is my /etc/pf.conf file with some minor alterations:


ext_if="bge0"
int_if="bge1"
dmz_if="bge2"
int_net="10.10.199.0/24"
dmz_net="172.30.67.0/24"
broken="224.0.0.22 127.0.0.0/8 192.168.0.0/16 172.16.0.0/12 \
10.0.0.0/8 169.254.0.0/16 192.0.2.0/24 \
198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24, \
169.254.0.0/16 0.0.0.0/8 240.0.0.0/4 255.255.255.255/32"
set optimization aggressive
set block-policy return
set skip on { lo }
queue main on $ext_if bandwidth 10M
queue defq parent main bandwidth 2500K default
queue web parent main bandwidth 7100K
queue icmp parent main bandwidth 400K
antispoof for { $ext_if, $int_if, $dmz_if }
match in all scrub (no-df random-id max-mss 1440)
match out on $ext_if set prio (5, 6)
match out on $ext_if proto tcp to port { www, https } \
set queue web
match out on $ext_if proto icmp queue icmp
match out on $ext_if from !($ext_if:network) to any nat-to ($ext_if:0)
block in log on $ext_if
pass out
block in quick on $ext_if from { $broken no-route urpf-failed } to any
block out quick on $ext_if from any to { no-route $broken }
pass on { $int_if, $dmz_if }
pass in quick on { $int_if, $dmz_if } inet proto tcp to port ftp \
divert-to 127.0.0.1 port 8021
block proto tcp from any to any port 1688
block log from $dmz_net to $int_net

Data Center Virtualization Fundamentals is a pretty good book. It is not dedicated just to FCoE, but it covers a wide range of data center technologies at an intermediate level from the Cisco perspective.

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.

Purchase this book and read it https://www.amazon.com/IP-Fundamentals-Everyone-Addressing-Routing/dp/0139754830

https://www.amazon.ca/Top-Down-Network-Design-Priscilla-Oppenheimer/dp/1587202832

This was my networking textbook

Anyone who claims to "know a lot about hacking" would have learned them out of their Networking for Dummies book, if they actually knew what they were talking about.

In fact, Trump doesn't even use a computer, so he doesn't know the first thing about them.

The book has two tones. Half is the actual guidelines themselves. While they are specific to .NET (MS and Mono), much of it is applicable to any OO based language. You can just download that part for free from Microsoft.

Where the lasting value comes from is the commentary. The poeple who wrote the guidelines talk about why the rules are in place and what early mistakes they made. There is a lot on the actual theory of library design, a topic that isn't normally covered in other books.

When Microsoft says "falling into the pit of success" and "make the easy things easy and the hard things possible", they aren't just throwing out catch phrases. They are actual library design techniques that are covered in this book.

There is very little that is specific to Win32.

http://www.amazon.com/Framework-Design-Guidelines-Conventions-Development/dp/0321246756

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