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Network Fundamentals: Top Picks

Network Fundamentals

Network Broadcast

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 o...
Network Fundamentals

Firewall Topologies

In this section we are going to talk about the different ways a firewall can be set up. Depending on your needs, you can have a very simple firewal...
Network Fundamentals

Power over Ethernet - Understanding PoE Technol...

Power over Ethernet (PoE) was invented by PowerDsine back in 1997 and the first power injector (Midspan) was installed in 1998! Many manufacturespa...
Network Fundamentals

The Importance of a Network Analyzer – Packet S...

Network Analyzers, also known as Packet Sniffers, are amongst the most popular network tools found inside any Network Engineer’s toolkit. A Network...

Featured Subcategories:

Netflow Articles:

Netflow

Netflow vs SNMP. Two Different Approaches to Ne...

SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) and Netflow are both popular protocols with admins, prized for their ability to give visibility over the ...
Netflow

NetFlow Analyzer: Free Download, Step-by-Step I...

In our previous article we explained how a Netflow Analyzer can help you gain visibility into your user traffic, application traffic and data flows...
Netflow

Netflow: Monitor Bandwidth & Network Utilizatio...

Monitoring network traffic & bandwidth usage via Netflow is mandatory for any type and size network. Gaining visibility into user traffic, appl...
Netflow

Complete Guide to Netflow: How Netflow & its Co...

This article will cover the basics of Netflow, including its use cases, Netflow supported devices, Netflow history, and variants. We’ll also dive i...

Network Protocols:

Supernetting & CIDR

Supernetting In-Depth Analysis - Learn to Ident...

Our previous article served as an introduction to Supernetting, also known as Route Summarization. We covered the concept of Supernetting, how it w...
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis

TCP Header Anaylsis - Section 5: TCP Window Siz...

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 ...
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis

Transmission Control Protocol - Part 2: Quick O...

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 ...
Domain Name System (DNS)

The DNS Protocol - Part 4: DNS Response Message...

The previous article covered the DNS Query message formats. In the article we analysed them in great detail and showed how various options are sele...
Subnetting

IP Subnetting - Part 3: Subnet Mask Bits & Anal...

So we have covered to some depth the subnetting topic, but there is still much to learn ! We are going to explain here the available subnet masks a...
Supernetting & CIDR

What is Supernetting (Route Summarization) & Ho...

Supernetting is the opposite of of subnetting, and is also known as route aggregation or CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing). Supernetting is a t...
Domain Name System (DNS)

The DNS Protocol - Part 3: DNS Query Message Fo...

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....
TCP - UDP Protocol Analysis

UDP Protocol - Header

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 ...

STP/ICMP Protocols:

ICMP Protocol

ICMP Protocol - Part 6: Redirect Messages

The ICMP - Redirect Message is always sent from a gateway to the host and the example below will illustrate when this is used. Putting it simply (...
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

Spanning Tree Protocol – Part 3: Bridge ID, Pri...

In this article we will examine the Spanning Tree Bridge ID structure, explain why it has increments of 4096, how VLAN information is embedded (for...
ICMP Protocol

ICMP Protocol - Part 5: Source Quench Message A...

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 workstatio...
ICMP Protocol

ICMP Protocol - Part 7: Time Exceeded Message A...

The ICMP - Time Exceeded message is one which is usually created by gateways or routers. In order to fully understand this ICMP message, you must b...

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VLAN Networks

VLAN InterSwitch Link (ISL) Protocol Analysis

Deciding whether to use ISL or IEEE 802.1q to power your trunk links can be quite confusing if you cannot identify the advantages and disadvantages of e...
VLAN Networks

The VLAN Concept - Introduction to VLANs

We hear about them everywhere, vendors around the world are constantly trying to push them into every type of network and as a result, the Local Area Ne...
VLAN Networks

VLANs - IEEE 802.1q Trunk Link Protocol Analysis

While the VLAN Tagging article briefly covered the IEEE 802.1q protocol this article will continue building upon it by further analyzing the IEEE 802.1q...
VLAN Networks

InterVLAN Routing - Routing between VLAN Networks

This article deals with the popular topic of InterVLAN routing, which is used to allow routing & communication between VLAN networks. Our article an...

Routing

OSPF - Part 1: Introduction, OSPF Packet Structure, ...

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a popular routing protocol developed for Internet Protocol (IP) networks by the Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) worki...
Routing

OSPF - Part 3: OSPF Adjacency & Neighbor Forming Pro...

This is the thrid article of our 6-part OSPF series (see below) that describes how OSPF routers perform neighbor relationship and adjacency. We’ll exami...
Routing

Routing Information Protocol - RIP

Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is a distance-vector routing protocol that is commonly used in small to medium-sized networks. It is one of the...
Routing

Link State Routing Protocols

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 networ...

Network Address Translation - NAT

Network Address Translation (NAT) Overload - Part 1

NAT Overload is the most common NAT method used throughout all networks that connect to the Internet. This is because of the way it functions and the li...
Network Address Translation - NAT

Network Address Translation (NAT) Overload - Part 2

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 t...
Network Address Translation - NAT

Static NAT - Part 1

Static NAT (also called inbound mapping) is the first mode we're going to talk about and also happens to be the most uncommon between smaller networks. ...
Network Address Translation - NAT

The Network Address Translation Table

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 i...