Skip to main content

Network Fundamentals: Top Picks

Network Fundamentals
A network is simply a group of two or more Personal Computers linked together. Many types of networks exist, but the most common types of networks ar…
Network Fundamentals
Network Analyzers, also known as Packet Sniffers, are amongst the most popular network tools found inside any Network Engineer’s toolkit. A Network A…
Network Fundamentals
Power over Ethernet (PoE) was invented by PowerDsine back in 1997 and the first power injector (Midspan) was installed in 1998! Many manufacturespart…
Network Fundamentals
The term "Broadcast" is used very frequently in the networking world . You will see it in most networking books and articles, or see it happening on…

Featured Subcategories:

Netflow Articles:

Netflow
In this article, we explore the core principles of bandwidth management and examine how modern network monitoring technologies can assist in maintain…
Netflow
Monitoring network traffic & bandwidth usage via Netflow is mandatory for any type and size network. Gaining visibility into user traffic, applic…
Netflow
In our previous article we explained how a Netflow Analyzer can help you gain visibility into your user traffic, application traffic and data flows w…
Netflow
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) and Netflow are both popular protocols with admins, prized for their ability to give visibility over the ne…

Network Protocols:

TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
As previously mentioned on a number of occasions, TCP is one of the two protocols that lives at the Transport layer and is used to carry data from on…
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
Our fifth section contains some very interesting fields that are used by the TCP transport protocol. We see how TCP helps control how much data is tr…
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
Finally, the last page of our incredible TCP Analysis. As most of you would expect, this section is dedicated to the DATA section that follows the TC…
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
Understanding how each protocol fits into the OSI Model is essential for any network engineer. This page analyses how TCP is classified as a 'transpo…
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
This article covers the UDP protocol. We examine the structure of the UDP header, the protocols that use UDP as a transport plus a lot more. Some co…
Domain Name System (DNS)
This section will deal with the analysis of the DNS packets by examining how DNS messages are formatted and the options and variables they contain. T…
Supernetting & CIDR
Supernetting is the opposite of of subnetting, and is also known as route aggregation or CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing). Supernetting is a tec…
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis
The TCP Options (MSS, Window Scaling, Selective Acknowledgements, Timestamps, Nop) are located at the end of the TCP Header which is also why they ar…

STP/ICMP Protocols:

ICMP Protocol
The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), is a very popular protocol and actually part of an Internet Protocol (IP) implementation. Because IP wa…
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
One of the most used terms in network is LAN (Local Area Network). It’s a form of network that we encounter in our daily lives, at home, at work, stu…
ICMP Protocol
The ICMP - Source Quench message is one that can be generated by either a gateway or host. You won't see any such message pop up on your workstation…
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
Spanning Tree Protocol, Rapid STP port costs and port states are an essential part of the STP algorithm that affect how STP decides to forward or blo…

All-in-one protection for Microsoft 365

All-in-one protection for Microsoft 365

FREE Hyper-V & VMware Backup

FREE Hyper-V & VMware Backup

Enterprise-Class Cloud & Network Monitoring

Enterprise Class Cloud & Network Monitoring - Free Download

Wi-Fi Key Generator

Generate/Crack any
WEP, WPA, WPA2 Key!

Network and Server Monitoring

Network and Server Monitoring

Follow Firewall.cx

Cisco Password Crack

Decrypt Cisco Type-7 Passwords on the fly!

Decrypt Now!

Bandwidth Monitor

Zoho Netflow Analyzer Free Download

Free PatchManager

Free PatchManager

Security Podcast

Hornet-Security-The-Swarm-Podcast

Firewall Analyzer

zoho firewall analyzer


VLAN Networks
Dynamic VLANs were introduced to grant the flexibility and complexity(!) that Static VLANs did not provide. Dynamic VLANs are quite rare because of their…
VLAN Networks
This article deals with the popular topic of InterVLAN routing, which is used to allow routing & communication between VLAN networks. Our article anal…
VLAN Networks
Designing and building a network is not a simple job. VLANs are no exception to this rule, in fact they require a more sophisticated approach because of t…
VLAN Networks
The previous article introduced the VTP protocol, we examined how it can be used within a network, to help manage VLANs and ease the administrative overhe…

Routing
We all understand that TCP/IP, IPX-SPX are protocols which are used in a Local Area Network (LAN) so computers can communicate between with each other and…
Routing
IGRP (Interior Gateway Routing Protocol) is a Cisco proprietary distance-vector routing protocol used in enterprise networks to exchange routing informati…
Routing
Link State routing protocols do not view networks in terms of adjacent routers and hop counts, but they build a comprehensive view of the overall network…
Routing
Distance Vector routing protocols use frequent broadcasts (255.255.255.255 or FF:FF:FF:FF) of their entire routing table every 30 sec. on all their interf…

Network Address Translation - NAT
In our previous article, Network Address Translation (NAT) Overload - Part 1, we explained what NAT Overload is and how it works. This page deals with the…
Network Address Translation - NAT
Before we dive into the deep waters of NAT, we need to make sure we understand exactly what NAT does. So let me give you the background of NAT, why it's h…
Network Address Translation - NAT
After that simple and informative introduction to the NAT concept, it's time to find out more about how it works and this is where the NAT table comes in…
Network Address Translation - NAT
Dynamic NAT is the second NAT mode we're going to talk about. Dynamic NAT, like Static NAT, is not that common in smaller networks but you'll find it used…