I’ve been watching some One Marc Fifty stuff on YouTube. I can follow him well, and I’m decent at much of the hardware stuff. At least I can compile OpenWRT or do a basic Gentoo install with a custom kernel. I dread staring at NFTables, but can hack around some. I don’t fully understand networking from the abstract fundamentals. Are there any good sources that break down the subject like Ben Eater did with the 8 bit bread board computer, showing all the basic logic, buses, and registers surrounding the Arithmetic Logic Unit? I’m largely looking for a more fundamental perspective on what are the core components of the stack and what elements are limited to niche applications.
I just realized I want to use self signed client certificates between devices. It was one of those moments where I feel dumb for the limited scope of my knowledge about the scale of various problems and solutions.
There’s The Serial Port, It’s not really ‘home networks’, but he finds and sets up very early (~80-90s) ISP gear and explains how it works and the history of it. Similar to how Ben Eater uses an ‘old’ 6502 to explain stuff.
I don’t know about videos but having a look at the OSI model is a good way to start. It covers the abstract framework for packetizing data including things like the distinction between hardware and software, envelope, encryption, application layer stuff, the whole shebang. The cool thing is by going hardware, network, application you can see where responsibility are and it helps you understand where things can go wrong.
If you are interested there are plenty of CCNA style courses available on the internet, licit and otherwise, and they go into more depth, and the same applies to RHCE/RHCSA material. The training for certifications like that covers what you want to know but also puts it in context, and again licit and otherwise sources are available.
Not quite a the level you are asking, but I have watched many videos from crosstalk solutions. Also, this series from the hookup is what i used as a template for my home lab: https://youtu.be/Z_6eDtWumsA?si=89kVLLNqqrx2wM3a
No joke, I thought for a second you were referring to Infinite Solutions and were trolling hardcore. I haven’t thought about that in a long time.
not exactly what you are looking for, but practical networking helped me understand the networking basics for my cs degree.
I’m not sure, but I would be surprised if there was, especially for any sort of modern equipment. Networking hardware is really just a standard computer with a lot of specialized SoC chips specific to networking routines. So your generic home wireless router is an ARM chip, some ram, some storage, and then a wireless SoC chips, for example. Most of your enterprise type switches are basically the same Intel or AMD CPUs you’d find in a server with a ton of specialized single-purpose chips augments to offload specific jobs really fast.
So if there was a very basic beginner course to building networking hardware like, it would probably be using the concepts that 80’s hardware may have used I’d guess. Maybe try looking for someone building a modem or NIC from scratch?
I’m not familiar with the Ben Eater series, but there are certainly a couple options to check out.
Mark Ferneaux did a fantastic series on the workings of pfSense. It’s a little dated, but the core concepts are still sound and apply to networking generally.
There are also several sites that do in-depth networking topics with a focus on certifications. My favorite of the bunch is Viatto.
I also quite like The Network Berg, though his videos are specifically focused on Mikrotik.
