57: I Play the Heavy

I’m prepping to write a new edition of Networking for Systems Administrators. Here’s a bit from the beginning where I’m talking to network administrators.

I skip many traditional networking topics because they’re not absolutely essential. SNMP, or the Simple Network Management Protocol, is one example. I filled a book this size discussing SNMP. I do discuss how ICMP is built on top of IP, when the specification wedges it into this misshapen role between the network and transport layers. But someone who’s unclear on TCP versus UDP doesn’t need to go into SNMP, or Netflow, or VLAN propagation, or any of the innumerable protocols used to manage and diagnose networks. Understanding VLANs won’t change someone’s relationship with the network team the way understanding TCP/IP will.

Always remember that I’m talking to non-network administrators. I’m not going to tell sysadmins that they can, say, use a /112 IPv6 subnet, because not everybody’s equipment can do that. I play the heavy here by spelling out the rules: you get to swoop in and tell your people that yes, your network can break certain rules because you are so totally amazing.

This book will open for sponsorships once I finish shipping over 2000 copies of Run Your Own Mail Server. It might be time for me to hire help?