Old school recommendation, but the O’reilly book “Network Warrior” is actually a good read. It walks through common networking technologies, explains why they’re needed and how they’re used. Provides an excellent foundation of knowledge.
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
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If books are more to the OP's liking, some that I've read that I've found useful:
- Building a Home Cybersecurity Lab
- Deep Dive into Linux Networking: Configuring Firewalls, VPNs, and Secure Connections
- The Home Network Manual
- Home Networking Bible
ETA: One more. This is more of a start to finish kind of course but networking is definetly covered. Takes you from day one with your linux distro and a blank slate, all the way to scripting, all in easily digestible chapters: https://linuxupskillchallenge.org/
Oh my. That Linux Upskill Challenge resource is right up my alley. Thank you for sharing.
Happy to share. Came across it in my internet travels and bookmarked it thinking, maybe some could use it.
Ohhhhh, I'd forgotten about this. Good one.
Honestly, Cisco still is king for this. Look for some CCNA training courses to get a proper education on networking. Just get the material, don't worry about the exam.
YouTube, CBT Nuggets, and INE all have plenty of courses.
Yup. And the official training books are still a great resource for learning everything from the basics to more advanced stuff.
I bought an updated set a couple of years ago, and they still hold up.
I still reference my Cisco Press CCIE routing TCP/IP volume 1 and 2 from 2005
Network Chuck's earlier videos are pretty good, especially the You Suck At... series.
Unfortunately he's been pushing AI shit lately.
Network Chuck
They are archived for download at https://archive.org/details/NetworkChuck. That way you don't have to jump through all of YT's bs.
At least the AI-related videos of his I've seen were about running models locally, and for relatively legitimate use cases (training text-to-speech voices and commanding Home Assistant), so it could be worse.
I would start at the OSI model. Focus on layer 1 to start and then move on up. The more you learn the more you realize there is way more to learn.
Professor Messer’s videos are free and a good place to start. It’s prep for A+ and Network+
Hi! I really enjoy the THM service: https://tryhackme.com/module/networking They have a bunch of different modules to study. They do cater more to Cyber Security, but Networking is definitely included there!
If you search for "data communications and networking" you will find alot of learning materials.
Eg: