Picking Up the Pace
Today was Day 2, and as expected, things got a little more intense. The pace is picking up, and we’re diving deeper into networking concepts. Fortunately, a lot of the material we covered today was familiar to me from my CompTIA Network+ and CCNA studies.
I’ve been studying networking on and off for a little over a year, and while it took me a while to grasp some concepts initially, I felt pretty comfortable today – especially with subnetting and routing. Routing concepts were a bit trickier, but thanks to my CCNA prep, I had a solid foundation. Link-state and distance-vector routing protocols can get complicated, but reviewing them helped refresh my memory.
I also spent some time using Cisco Packet Tracer to reinforce what I learned, practicing how to configure static routes, OSPF and even VLANs. However, I did realize that I’ve forgotten a lot of what I studied before – which is frustrating, but also a good reminder of why reviewing is so important.
When I first started learning networking, I remember how overwhelming it all felt. Now, I’m grateful that I pushed through those “boring but essential” networking fundamentals. CIDR notation is a classic example – so many numbers can feel intimidating, but I have to thank Jeremy’s IT Lab on Udemy (when I studied for the CCNA) for breaking it down so well.
To reinforce today’s lessons, we did some labs, which gave me a chance to revisit concepts like stateless vs. stateful firewalls.
Exploring Metasploit
Beyond reviewing networking, I continued pushing forward with new topics, specifically Metasploit. I’m realizing just how powerful this framework is for penetration testing. While the material is dense, I’m starting to see that once you understand the fundamentals, things become much more manageable.
I learned about:
Metasploit modules and their structure
Basic msfconsole commands
Today, my professor also introduced me to a game designed to help learn Linux commands, and I’m excited to start it. I’m going to begin today, and I’ll leave the link here for anyone interested in trying it out too:
OverTheWire
Overall, it was a productive day, and I’m happy with how things are going so far. I don’t want to set overly high expectations, but I’m definitely feeling optimistic about the course.
