About this Book
For server administrators and desktop support technicians, the network has long been a mysterious labyrinth of boxes and wires. This book takes the existing networking knowledge and skills you already have from working on computers and expands on it by giving you practical, hands-on exercises that you’ll be able to use on the job almost immediately.
Most of what you’ll need to get started with this book is covered in chapter 1, but there are some things I want to mention here.
First, to complete the hands-on exercises, you’ll need access to a physical or virtual Cisco lab. I cover lab options in more detail in chapter 1. Just be prepared to spend some time setting up your lab if you don’t already have one.
Second, I’ve organized this book so that you begin with the most common tasks of a network administrator. These common tasks are fundamental and provide the foundation for the later chapters. Read the chapters in order, and don’t skip any.
Third, there are some conventions I use throughout the book to make it easier to digest. Fixed-width fonts indicate commands you’ll type in or output you should expect to see. Italics indicate important networking terms and concepts you should commit to memory. Not surprisingly, you’ll see a lot more commands than terms!