Networking

So I managed to land a temp contract setting up networking switches just the hardware side of things. it pays £215 a day ..... only catch is that I have literally never done it in practice how fucked am I. Or do I just take a crash course on youtube or should I go for the full cisco

>only catch is that I have literally never done it in practice
Hoo boy

all you need to do is this

So is it just as easy as it looks theres no hidden bullshit

theres lots of hidden bullshit, but it depends on the scope of your role

Like any job, you'll learn what to do as you spend time there

You're fucked

>just hardware
yeah it's easy. get good at crimping and making patch panels. other than that it's literally just plugging things in

Lmao, what is google? Just make sure you have access to a phone or something and just google everything you'll be fine. Once you make it past 90 days its really hard to fire you so you can just slack off an coast at that point, then job hop and reference trade to a promotion.

Well its part of a 6 man team but my role would be unpacking and wiring the cat6 no setting up or installation

You're going to fuck up and get fired, I hope none of your clients are PCI compliant or you could be taken to court. Fucking retard.

If it's literally just the hardware part you're fine. You might want to bring an RJ-45 wiring sheet with you and learn how to crimp cables.

Ok thanks for the advice, will do.

If some clownshoe like yourself got hired it's probably a manual labor job where literally all you're going to be doing is laying cable everywhere and that's it, you might even get lucky and plug in some patch leads but who knows.

Remove just the essential insulation and untwist just the essential part of the cable, and you'll be fine.

And if you are working on a live network, be sure to ask engineering before you plug in anything (enterprise switches aren't your home network)

The rest will come along with practice.

Dude you are going to be fine. I set up private cloud environments for mid enterprise, doing the physical hardware install and then the initial setup of the management layer of any devices that i install, if its just cat6 you are in luck. Here is my rundown of main stuff you need to know:

1. They should provide you a network diagram or a rack elevation diagram. Rack elevation diagrams just show you where in the cabinet the hardware goes, you can use that to get a general idea of how the cabinet should look when you are done. If they don't provide you this and expect you to use your best judgment, then do as follows: Networking gear goes up high, because its lighter and easier to install. Servers go in the middle of the cabinet and then SAN storage arrays and blade chassis go on the bottom. The reason being is that these items are really heavy and wont be moved around a lot unless a huge hardware upgrade is coming.

2. Any cable you make by hand needs to be tested. If you don't test the cable, you potentially waste tons of time on a simple issue later down the road during initial testing and troubleshooting.

3. Label your cables! At my datacenter my goal is that i should be able to completely remove a cable from a cabinet, and a support engineer with only mild hardware skills should be able to determine where the cable goes. I personally put two labels on each end, which some see as overkill but its a personal preference. I should be able to look at one end of the cable and know where it should be plugged into, and where the other end is. If you are working on a team, they should be able to guide you as to how they prefer to label their shit.

4. There will always be a debate about zip ties vs using velcro for cable management. figure out what your team prefers. I use both, zip ties for structural cable that isnt moving anywhere, and then velcro inside the cabinet for cables that might get moved or replaced more frequently.

5. Be mindful of bend radius on cables. If you kink a cat5 or cat6 cable it could cause signal degradation. This is especially true of Cat6. If your production servers are trying ti push 10g over the wire, a kinked or pinched cable will fuck it up. Just make sure your bends are nice and smooth, ideally the bend should be around the size of a tennis ball, but a little smaller than that is still fine.

6. Dont run cables that would prevent you from removing a piece of hardware if needed. If i have to remove a switch, and an unrelated cable is strung across to where i have to unplug something, you have done a great disservice to the team.

7. If you have to work with any fiber, make sure you dont step on it, and if you have the endcaps off the fiber, dont touch the ends.

8. Bluetooth earbuds! If you have them, bring them with you, i have a bluetooth headset for in datacenter work and its invaluable. It frees my hands to be on the phone, and i can listen to music if im doing a lot of terminations.

9. Dont drop anything. Enterprise hardware is expensive, if you arent confident in your ability to rack something by yourself, ask for help. People understand. An extra set of hands can save you 40,000 dollars in dropped hardware.

Thanks you so much you absolute legend

Im pretty sure people have unironically trained chimpanzees to do this type of work for free. Dont fuck this up user, doing so would have serious implications on the entire human race, no pressure though :^)

>only catch is that I have literally never done it in practice how fucked am I
Oh you're in for it now.

cool guy

>unpacking

You will be lowest guy on the totem pole. It's all the manual labor that they don't want to do. At best, you'll get to screw mounting ears onto the sides of switches. You'll literally be their little fuck-boi. Enjoy your McJob.

DONT PLUG THEM IN A LOOP
look up broadcast storms

Be sure to ground all components properly if using shielded, else you've built yourself an antenna

>What is spanning tree

something that doesn't run on the cheapo switches that are used far too often

Get a RJ45 crimp tool and practice with a spool of unterminated Ethernet, memorize EIA 568b, get a cage nut installation tool as well if you're racking things.

Doesn't HR usually keep this from happening by looking at certification list on resume.

OP at morning tea break.

Most important with PII type work is doing it well.

Any mongoloid can plug in RJ45 cables and make a spaghetti mess of the datacenter/closets. Any fuckboy can string up wires in a horrific mishmash. And there will be pressure on you to do it this way becuase it saves time and money short term.
But you need to take pride in your work. Make the cables fuckin gorgeous. Always use velcro. It's worth the five or six minutes to run a comb through a bundle that's gonna be there for the next decade. It's worth the hour to label and organize the cables. It's certainly worth the odd day here or there to write down what you've done and make sure the team has access to it.

Even if you're a temp and don't want to do it forever, it's so much more satisfying to do networking well.

Absolutely! Cable management and proper cabinet design is an underrated task.

Properly managed cables help prevent downtime. A clean looking cabinet that has been crafter with care also looks good if a customer ever needs to come on site, or if a sales team needs to show off the data center. Plus the work is a weirdly wonderful mish mash of blue collar and IT work, its really rewarding if you like technology but cant wrap your head around software development or DBA stuff, which is where I land.

>setting up networking switches just the hardware side of things
>only catch is that I have literally never done it in practice
Have fun with your cracked fiber.

Not only downtime, but also major fuckups.
We had one of those some months ago (we've got a private cloud DC and provide L2 connections for our customers to their offices).
Two switch ports weren't labeled, therefore our idiot guy thought they're unconfigured and free to use. He pulled the cables out, noticed that the lights weren't blinking anymore, therefore put them back in ... in the wrong order.
By this, he connected the private clouds of two customers to the wrong L2s. One of the customers just had a big presentation with their shareholders, and the presenting PC gave a notice that it succesfully connected to the LAN of the other customer ...

Eh, you're just running cable. Nobody likes to do that shit, at worst you wind up covered in lubricant and dust from pulling it through walls.

The nerds doing the actual setup just don't want to ruin their Geos and manicures.

If you need to get some experience configuring Cisco IOS devices then get your hands on Packet Tracer. Its more or less a network emulator, so you can connect two or more (many more) devices, configure them and troubleshoot the issues.

If you wanted to do a bit more fancy networking shit, download GNS3 and some IOS images. GNS3 is fully fledged virtualization, and it can plug into virtualbox VMs.
If none of that makes any sense to you, you're fucked.

Packet tracer uses a neutered version of IOS. Find for getting the basic stuff down, but if you want to do any serious stuff, you'll have to get a real switch and/or router.

Out of the loop truck driving but somene from France did serious iOS emulation, Cisco cert great but have to keep renewing at $ expense

he's just running cables

>PC gave a notice that it succesfully connected to the LAN of the other customer
That's a thing that exists.

Maybe he'd like to gain an understanding of the technology he's working with, and potentially demonstrate some knowledge rather than leaving everything up the the pajeets back in centeral office.

U might have stupid phone support ppl giving you directions from some assholes place like los angeles but watevs

Still useful info for a thread entitled "Networking". May as well make it a /NG/ - Networking General.

Actually, I'd really like that. Generals for all sorts of inane things on this board, why not have an actually useful one?

I'd love it. I'm only hanging around Sup Forums for the rare networking thread anymore (and shitposting to relax after work)
It would quickly become a d-link and home router general, sadly

fuck off, the last thing this board needs is another fucking general with the exact same bullshit thrown around

>another 'i just got a job doing something i literally have never done before, how will i do?'

When you're putting the ends on RJ45 cables, use a biro to see how long the wires coming out of the cable should be. That's a trick a colleague taught me, because if the wires are too short, you won't get any signal, and if the wires are too long, the end won't go on.

I can't find a picture of the pen we use, but you want the coloured wires to be as long as the silver bit on the end of this pen, roughly.

Having also spend a fair amount of time in a data center...

> 1. Order
Not always. Usually SAN is split into separate racks. In any non-shit facility, the racks are also often on ISObase's and bolted to the top of the ladder rack as well. But yeah, the TOR is always at the top (Top Of Rack)

> 2. Cables
Fucking this. Especially for something that's intermittent and goes sour when bumped later in life

> 3. Label.
I never label cables. Too much move / add / change. Never trust a cable that you don't own end to end (by tracing out every fucking inch)

> 4. Binding
Zip ties are fine for power and maybe KVM. Everything else should be Velcro. And trim the damn zip ties flush. I have scars from that shit.

> 5. Bending
The same is also true for fiber, if you have to deal with it.

> 6. Intrusion
Also this. I'm old school and use cable management arms. Everything fits in the arm, and is velcro'd, so I have plenty of air flow without any U space intrusion.

> 7. Fiber
Not quite the end of the world, but not bad advice, either

>8. Bluetooth / headphones
Not so much an issue now, but there was a time when Bluetooth headphones would interfere with Bluetooth debuggers. It was... problematic. But even if you're not using headphones, ear protection is a good thing.

> 9. Don't break it
Yeah, but you'd have to be pretty careless to drop something. The other side of that, if a server has a bad rail and is going to fall on your head, move and let it drop. I have never seen or heard about anyone being fired for jumping out of the way of a falling server that wasn't installed correctly.

"The more you know(TM)!"

>if the wires are too long, the end won't go on.
Maintenance just pulls the wires out too far and sticks them in one at a time before crimping them. There are cables everywhere with half an inch of exposed wire hanging out.

>cheapo switches
So, something that's not used as a TOR in a data center.

>The nerds doing the actual setup just don't want to ruin their Geos and manicures.

Sounds like you're a jealous faggot who's too stupid to configure any hardware

N-not where I work, they don't. Jesus Christ.

Just learn how to crimp cables, know basic terminology, and just always seem ready to learn.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...

Probably not. Networking scrubs are looked down upon by mostly everyone in tech who isn't help desk. Even frontend poos get more respect. Unless you're the one actually designing topologies for large setups where there are human concerns, then your job is going to be replaced by robots and shell scripts in a few years.

Menial shit like that is paid £215 a day? That amounts to £4500 if done full-time. Is such a rate for this kind of job legit?

Is cat5e dead?

>568b
Is this the one to use? I tried looking into it before and found at least as many sources insiting on 568A as on 568B. Yes, I know it's just colors and in the end it does not matter, but it's rather preferred to settle on one of them because of some specific reasons.

>you need to have certifications now to do a cable laying job

What else? University degree is a must too? Are people without degrees and certifications still allowed to wipe their own ass, or are they considered "unqualified" for that too by now?

So CCNA/CCNP leads to a blue collar job?

Probably won't be full time work if you get a per day wage.

>does fairly complex specialized work that sometimes includes getting your hands dirty
>without you nothing would fucking work
>arrogant web devs who copy paste shit from SE still think they're more important
Networking truly is the blue collar of the computing world.

A lot of the entry level postings I see either require or highly recommend a BS. Strangely enough, CCNA is half the time "a plus". There's plenty of higher level work with networking though.

>networking job posting
>BS in any discipline (however unrelated) required
>CCNA only "a plus"

Yep. I have more respect for electricians and plumbers. They seem to fuck up less too, even though you have to be a damn lawyer to work through all the legal requirements of modern building codes.

Networking has been a solved problem for decades. You fuckers literally plug cables into ots appliances and pretend to understand what the fuck is happening on the wire. Once sdn truly takes off you'll be relegated to running fibre bundles between buildings and setting up datacenter-in-a-box style cabinets. At least frontend devs work with arbitrary and sometimes even challenging requirements and have to consider human interaction in their work. The advent of the "devops" meme shows developers expanding into your space because it's way easier for them to just do your damn job for you.

t. Assblasted dev who is sick of incompetent networking people. It's hard for me to say which group I have more distain for: Networking or offshore pajeet vendors/contractors.

>developers improving their own workflow
>doing a network engineers job

what?

>You fuckers literally plug cables into ots appliances and pretend to understand what the fuck is happening on the wire.
>implying we don't
>implying it's just plugging in wires

>Developers sick of networking fuckups
>Tell management to go cloud even though saying that makes them cringe
>Configure VMs and PaaS themselves
>Setup the comfiest possible build pipeline
>Technically "devops" now.
>Reliability goes up an order of magnitude
>Management realizes outsourcing compute and data isn't even that much more expensive than on prem, and devs are actually happy.
>Smart beancounters shit their pants when TCO of on prem turns out to actually be way higher than cloud.
>Major push to migrate
>Networking staff canned and remaining tasks contracted out.
I've literally seen this happen and it's glorious. Either work in a huge data center or prepare to lose your job in five years or less.

Oh please tell me about how you also setup domain controllers, managed switches, phones, or any other ots equipment a chimp with an instruction manual could figure out.

>all network engineers work for companies doing programming

lol

>"devops"
Does this meme term stand for some sort of "developer and network engineer/sysadmin rolled into one"?

If a company has no devs on staff then they have no need for networking staff either. The only exceptions I can think of are big hospitals and other critical infrastructure where response time is literally tied to someone's life. Otherwise contract that shit out.

Kinda but not really. It's billed as better cooperation between devs and networking, but the reality is devs taking over server ownership, data management and software deployment since platform agnosticism, containerization, and easy as fuck package management have gotten so big. Eventually only developers and helpdesk remain.

>mfw I get yet another contract to unfuck the flaming wreckage of infrastructure set up by devs who can't tell a VLAN from Shibboleth
Keep thinking that you're shit butter hot, mate, I got a great thing going.

Maybe. I do networking but I basically set up networks for large events. Think concerts, sporting event, conferences, and shit like that. Nothing really much happens that is too technically, but I always have to go out and roll out new cable. Cable to the press, setting up wireless, getting a fiber line in and plunging in crap. I don't see that going away for another ten years at least. Sure cell phone internet will take over a lot of what I do but in huge events there isn't enough bandwidth in the air to support everyone.

In small/medium business settings this works great. The problem is you're now having the devs take ownership of networking hardware. This isn't an issue when the scale is small, but when you have 2400 servers (as is in my case), it doesn't make sense to have a dev making 120k a year working on a network engineers job who's making 100k. Our clients would also shit themselves if we ever kept any of their data on a "cloud" service. When a single project for a client is worth upwards of $1b, you really do need networking guys.

>if you have the endcaps off the fiber, dont touch the ends.

I'd like to touch on this a bit. In fiber country cleanliness is paramount. After extensive testing with a fiberscope and greasy fingers I can confirm that yes, you can touch the endface. And no, you're not plugging it anywhere before it has been confirmed free of contaminants.

Best practice is really to clean and inspect each endface before mating the connectors. Female connectors go first, since they are more protected. Male parts are uncorked, cleaned and inspected just before mating.

Use a good quality fiberscope with automatic analysis. They're not perfect however so you will need to use a bit of judgement. Contaminants in the outer regions of the endface, which do not move when agitated, might be OK unless your company policy says otherwise.

Cleaning is a matter of progressive escalation. Give it three attempts at dry cleaning with one-click-cleaner or optipop before moving to wet methods with isopropanol and lint-free wipes or cleanstixx. If the fiber tests bad after another three attempts with wet methods, discard it.

Fiber and cleaning supplies are cheap, incidents in a production network are not.

>The problem is you're now having the devs take ownership of networking hardware.

How does that look in practice? Folks whose main duty is to write some software are now messing around with switches, routers and firewalls as they please? How does that not fuck up security and performance of the network, given that developers mostly don't have much experience with professional network administration? Or will dev job offers now require a CCNA/CCNP in addition to the usual dozen of languages and associated meme frameworks?

No.

Different places use different ones. There is no real difference; it's not like one is better than the other. You could even put the wires in in a different order that you just made up if you wanted, as long as it's the same order as the patch panel or wherever you're plugging it into.

And what software development would happen in a data centre, the heartland of networking and plugging in cables?

you'll do fine just remember

>falling for the devops meme
You dumb fucks. It's just a way for your boss to cut workforce and salaries. Enjoy coding and playing admin literally at the same time.

Just don't do ghetto grounding/earthing by connecting shit to water or sewage pipes and such.

So it's actually as I suspected. Physical employees treated like hypervisors which multiple roles are being stacked upon like VMs.

Which is wrong and unfair.

Network is the backbone, they should be respected

I'm glad you got a niche fixing the shit built by 90% of "networking guy"s. I've dealt with CCNA assholes who couldn't tell me what ARP was, and that's not an exacerbation. One even told me MAC addresses were obsolete. He also barely knew what ipv6 was, so he couldn't just have been from 30 years in the future.

Your job will exist until we have general purpose robots with rudimentary task performing AI. Don't worry.

At a scale of 2,400 servers and billion dollar projects you fit neatly into the "work in a datacenter" scale.

The networking hardware goes away and gets replaced by a role based security model and virtual network bridging virtual machines or containers to services.
If performance is so critical that you need dedicated 40Gb/s between a petaflop of CPU and a petabyte of SAN then you still do that on prem and hire some network goons to run fiber, but those kinds of requirements are rare.

Datacenters clearly need real networking engineers. As in people who are basically EE/CE with a passion for data communication.

Say what you want but cloud and devops, like agile, are memes with some actual solid fundamentals. I've never been so productive.

I give them the same respect as highway workers. Your job is simple but it makes my life easier, so thanks, but I'm not going to be breaking bread with either group over some technical conversation.