Network

Understand and troubleshoot computer networks with TCP/IP, DNS, routing, and diagnostic tools.

Network Fundamentals

TCP/IP Basics

• TCP guarantees delivery with retransmission — use for reliability (HTTP, SSH, databases)
• UDP is fire-and-forget — use for speed when loss is acceptable (video, gaming, DNS queries)
• Port numbers: 0-1023 privileged (need root), 1024-65535 available — common services have well-known ports
• Ephemeral ports for client connections — OS assigns randomly from high range

DNS

• DNS resolution is cached at multiple levels — browser, OS, router, ISP — flush all when debugging
• TTL determines cache duration — lower before migrations, raise after for performance
• A record for IPv4, AAAA for IPv6, CNAME for aliases, MX for mail
• CNAME cannot exist at zone apex (root domain) — use A record or provider-specific alias
• dig and nslookup query DNS directly — bypass local cache for accurate results

IP Addressing

• Private ranges: 10.x.x.x, 172.16-31.x.x, 192.168.x.x — not routable on internet
• CIDR notation: /24 = 256 IPs, /16 = 65536 IPs — each bit halves or doubles the range
• 127.0.0.1 is localhost — 0.0.0.0 means all interfaces, not a valid destination
• NAT translates private to public IPs — most home/office networks use this
• IPv6 eliminates NAT need — but dual-stack with IPv4 still common

Common Ports

• 22: SSH — 80: HTTP — 443: HTTPS — 53: DNS
• 25/465/587: SMTP (mail sending) — 143/993: IMAP — 110/995: POP3
• 3306: MySQL — 5432: PostgreSQL — 6379: Redis — 27017: MongoDB
• 3000/8080/8000: Common development servers

Troubleshooting Tools

• ping tests reachability — but ICMP may be blocked, no response doesn't mean down
• traceroute/tracert shows path — identifies where packets stop or slow down
• netstat -tulpn or ss -tulpn shows listening ports — find what's using a port
• curl -v shows full HTTP transaction — headers, timing, TLS negotiation
• tcpdump and Wireshark capture packets — last resort for deep debugging

Firewalls and NAT

• Stateful firewalls track connections — allow response to outbound requests automatically
• Port forwarding maps external port to internal IP:port — required to expose services behind NAT
• Hairpin NAT for internal access to external IP — not all routers support it
• UPnP auto-configures port forwarding — convenient but security risk, disable on servers

Load Balancing

• Round-robin distributes sequentially — simple but ignores server capacity
• Least connections sends to least busy — better for varying request durations
• Health checks remove dead servers — configure appropriate intervals and thresholds
• Sticky sessions (affinity) keep user on same server — needed for stateful apps, breaks scaling

VPNs and Tunnels

• VPN encrypts traffic to exit point — all traffic appears from VPN server IP
• Split tunneling sends only some traffic through VPN — reduces latency for local resources
• WireGuard is modern and fast — simpler than OpenVPN, better performance
• SSH tunnels for ad-hoc port forwarding — ssh -L local:remote:port creates secure tunnel

SSL/TLS

• TLS 1.2 minimum, prefer 1.3 — older versions have known vulnerabilities
• Certificate chain: leaf → intermediate → root — missing intermediate causes validation failures
• SNI allows multiple certs on one IP — older clients without SNI get default cert
• Let's Encrypt certs expire in 90 days — automate renewal or face outages

Common Mistakes

• Assuming DNS changes are instant — TTL means old records persist in caches
• Blocking ICMP entirely — breaks path MTU discovery, causes mysterious failures
• Forgetting IPv6 — services may be accessible on IPv6 even with IPv4 firewall
• Hardcoding IPs instead of hostnames — breaks when IPs change
• Not checking both TCP and UDP — some services need UDP (DNS, VPN, game servers)
• Confusing latency and bandwidth — high bandwidth doesn't mean low latency