Michael W Lucas 

Dear sysadmin: quit fighting with the network team. You deserve better. The only way you'll get better is to take it.

https://mwl.io/ks #kickstarter #n4sa2e

Networking for System Administrators (2nd Edition)

The critically-acclaimed sysadmin reference, updated for modern Windows and Unix

Kickstarter
Sep 19, 2025 at 1:17pmWeb
Show threadScott BlaydesSep 19, 2025

@mwl I backed the book.

But I enjoy fighting with the network team.

Show threadMichael W Lucas Sep 19, 2025
@sblaydes if you wanna fight, #n4sa2e will help you win
Show threadScruffy looking packet herderSep 20, 2025
@mwl @sblaydes Any half way decent networker is happy to have it be a network problem. We can fix those! Which means we can fix the problem and everyone can get on with their lives. So, yeah, you use the knowledge in this book you’ll soon become our BFF.
Show threadTim ChaseSep 19, 2025

@mwl

Does one really quit fighting with the network team? Or does one arm yourself with #n4sa2e so you can triumph when you go toe-to-toe with them because you know it's really their fault? 😈

"See, I've got the pcap files right here that show your network drops reply packets on the floor…"

Show threadScruffy looking packet herderSep 20, 2025
@gumnos Yup! That’l show us. Relevant captures understood correctly. We hate that. You should do it a lot to really show us up. @mwl
Show threadTim ChaseSep 20, 2025

@sng

Lately my biggest netadmin issues have been the outsourced IT at $DAYJOB bungling certificate rollovers…forgetting names in the SAN, letting expiry-dates lapse, updating one half of a failover config, …

But there have also been a fair number of firewall/NAT rules that were tightened down without actually observing active traffic. Yes, FTP & FTPS (not SFTP) require a bit more care and feeding than your average NAT rules. 😑

(and yes, my cases had pcaps, traceroute/ping results, TLS cert dumps, and all those requisite things, leaving me feeling very vindicated 😎 )

@mwl

Show threadScruffy looking packet herderSep 20, 2025
@mwl @gumnos Oh yeah. I had to train a younger engineer a while back on old school FTP. How that works is rapidly becoming lost knowledge.
Show threadTobySep 20, 2025

@mwl My network team were, simultaneously, the most brilliant people I'd ever met and super duper dum-dums with extra stupid sauce on top.

I loved them then as I love them now and I hope they're all doin' great today.