Job role: network administrator
You spend a week as a company’s network administrator: an inherited network, a new branch, user requests and an outage, delivering every job with evidence and documents.
Level 401 · 16 lessons · 15 practice labs
Lessons
Monday: the handover
- Mapping the network you inherited
- An inventory of services and configuration
- Quick wins: closing obvious risks
- Short task: write the handover report
Tuesday and Wednesday: a new branch
- Address and VLAN plan for the branch
- Linking the branch to HQ over VPN
- DHCP, DNS and file sharing for the branch
- Short task: bring the branch live
Thursday: user requests
- User requests: printers, shares, Wi-Fi
- Access requests and least privilege
- Short task: clear the ticket queue
Friday: the outage
- Communication and prioritisation during an outage
- Root-cause analysis
- A blameless post-incident review
- Short task: write the outage report
Wrap-up
- Capstone: an end-of-week network health report and improvement plan
Practice labs
- What is on the network you inherited?: Scan out the subnets, gateways and live hosts on the lab network and prepare an asset list with a simple diagram.
- Which server provides which service?: Identify open ports and running services on the network’s servers, note where the configuration files live and write an inventory flagging services that seem to have no owner.
- The five biggest risks of an undocumented network: Verify in the lab three entries of the given map and service inventory of Oakmere Studios’ undocumented network, find the five biggest risks and write a one-page prioritised handover note.
- Telnet left open and a default password: Disable the Telnet left open on network devices, move to SSH, change the default password and show with a scan that Telnet is closed.
- Internal services exposed to the internet: Review the port forwards on the edge firewall, close the two services that should not be exposed and show the outside scan results before and after.
- Which of the five risks comes first?: Score five risks on the network by impact and ease of fixing, apply the top two without downtime and write evidence and a rollback note for each.
- DHCP and DNS for the new branch: Create the DHCP scope and internal DNS records for the branch subnet and show a branch client getting an address and resolving the head-office server by name.
- The branch cannot reach head office: Fix the wrong allowed subnet and missing route on the VPN between branch and head office, and show two-way reachability and access to the file share.
- The acceptance test before go-live: Run the acceptance test list on Caravan Travel’s newly built branch, fix the three failing items (a VPN route, a DHCP option, a share permission) and record the results in the go-live record.
- A printer and share request: Fulfil the new employee’s request for printer and department-share access with only the needed permissions and test it as that user.
- Everyone can write to every share: Export the share permissions, find access that breaks least privilege, rework the groups and compare the permission table before and after the change.
- Six requests in the queue: Rank Brightfield Labs’ queue of six requests by priority and risk, carry out the reasonable ones, turn down the suspicious access request with your reasons and write a closing note on every ticket.
- The first update during an outage: Determine the affected services in a simulated outage by testing them and write a short, clear status update for users with the time of the next update.
- The outage’s root cause: Find the change that caused the outage from the logs and configuration history, restore the service and build the incident timeline.
- Two small mistakes, one big outage: Find the two interacting causes behind the multi-stage outage at Atlas Clinic, restore the service and write a blameless review with three measures to stop it recurring.
About this course
You spend a week as a company’s network administrator: an inherited network, a new branch, user requests and an outage, delivering every job with evidence and documents.
What you will learn
- Monday: the handover
- Tuesday and Wednesday: a new branch
- Thursday: user requests
- Friday: the outage
- Wrap-up
Prerequisites
You should have practised the topics of the same path up to level 301.
Lab environment
Lessons run in your own Kali Linux terminal in the browser, connected to a private lab network. Nothing to install.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this course right for my level?
- The course is at level 401; it assumes you know the topics of the lower-level courses.
- Is there anything to install?
- No. Every lesson runs in your own lab environment that opens in the browser.
- How do lessons work?
- Each lesson has 8 to 10 steps and a short quiz. Early steps show the command to type, later steps give less help; if two attempts fail, the solution opens.
- Can I try it for free?
- Yes. The first three lessons of every course are free.