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Anyone with any idea of the changes which will be made to Security+ when they roll out their SY0-501 in October? Looking to start my certification trail in security. I already have a Masters in information security so Security+ should be decently easy right?
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Sep 14, 2017 07:49
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MrBigglesworth posted:Speaking of RHCSA, what would be a good start for that to learn Linux stuff? I mean I have installed a Linux build on a home computer a long time ago, easy to do, but then....uh...what. It was just another Desktop OS, whoopteefuckingdoo. Where I worked there was no cross functionality between teams so I was straight networking on Cisco stuff. Use CentOS to practise, not RHEL. Virtualbox is good to start, personally I found the Sander van Vugt book very useful. It's for both rhcsa and rhce (split per exam though). It provides training VMs that work with the exercises in the book which is pretty cool. LPIC is nice to get to know Linux but I'd not go that way. In my experience RHCSA is valued a lot higher than LPIC simply because it's a practical exam instead of theoretical.
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Sep 14, 2017 12:15
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LochNessMonster posted:Use CentOS to practise, not RHEL. Virtualbox is good to start, personally I found the Sander van Vugt book very useful. It's for both rhcsa and rhce (split per exam though). It provides training VMs that work with the exercises in the book which is pretty cool. You can actually get a free RHEL license (without support, obviously) these days if you really want to practice on the real thing: https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2016/03/31/no-cost-rhel-developer-subscription-now-available/ Though yeah, CentOS is totally free and identical in all ways that matter. In terms of how to learn Linux, I agree just using it as your desktop OS isn't super helpful. Just like you don't become an Active Directory expert by installing Windows 10 on your laptop. For me, picking a project to work on was good. Set up a stupid Wordpress blog (by hand, not using some one-click installer). Set up a fake, internal mrbigglseworth.butts domain, configure BIND to host it, and configure another box to use it for DNS resolution. Stuff like that.
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Sep 14, 2017 15:04
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xThrasheRx posted:Anyone with any idea of the changes which will be made to Security+ when they roll out their SY0-501 in October? It was pretty straight forward when I got mine 3 years ago. Just get that book that everyone likes by a guy named Darrel on Amazon when he puts out the new edition and you should be fine.
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Sep 14, 2017 15:31
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Japanese Dating Sim posted:Right there with you. Yup, I worked construction for 5 years after leaving college at 23, not that i was actively going the whole time, I really only went for ~3 years, just lived in the college town the whole time and worked. Right there with you on the "I feel really far behind and need to do something to catch-up quickly" sadly it gets harder and harder to find time outside of work to study and lab and everything.
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Sep 14, 2017 17:06
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Definitely feeling that pain - I mentioned this a few pages ago but I've spent almost the entire past decade spinning my wheels in the lower levels of healthcare, so the past several months of trying to immerse myself in IT concepts and career paths has been a bit of whirlwind to say the least. On the one hand, coming at it later in life is good as it comes with humility and maturity that wouldn't have been there right out of school. On the other hand, starting over at this age sucks.  This may belong more in the general IT thread but this one seems more geared to people starting out or at lower levels, so I'll ask here (and copy/paste to the correct thread if deemed necessary) - next week I'm starting a helpdesk gig with a goal for myself of advancing to a higher level in 12-18 months. I'm about 80% sure I want to pursue being a sysadmin but that's of course subject to change once I get hands-on. In any case, given my late start, I'm trying to hit the ground running. So: For someone just starting their first job, what advice would you give? Are there any painful lessons you learned in your first job that you wish you knew going in?
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Sep 14, 2017 18:03
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MF_James posted:Right there with you on the "I feel really far behind and need to do something to catch-up quickly" sadly it gets harder and harder to find time outside of work to study and lab and everything. Yeah, I've got a three year-old and a wife that deserve my time after work, a house, hobbies, and some friends that I like to see occasionally. With all of that I basically get to spend my lunch hour and maybe an hour at home studying, if I'm lucky. It'd be one thing if I was working around people that knew what they were doing so I could learn on the job, but I'm not. The processes that are in place here are all out of the 90s (we have a binder with signed pieces of paper for our inventory), and I can only expend so much time to improve things one at a time. Beyond my own department, everything's all silo'd so I don't really touch AD/networking/etc stuff. I've made a lot of improvements here but they've nearly all required me to basically identify the problem, come up with a solution, and then ask someone else to do it without no knowledge of how they actually did it. Like automatic AD group assignment. I've come up with groups and rules for said groups that have helped us a lot, but I have no idea how they made those groups and populated them. I identified a service that will benefit from using Shibboleth for SSO but I doubt I'll see how any of that gets done (I'll certainly try though). And I've got a boss that's constantly interrupting me when I'm trying to work on impactful projects - "Hey, do you have a minute?" - to tell me about some random thing he incidentally came across that he thinks is not great (and it's always clerical/administrative stuff), and thinks I should work on that. I know I need to leave - I reached out to a recruiter connection and am meeting with him next week, and am otherwise looking - but I don't know how good my prospects are without some direct experience doing sysadmin/scripting stuff, or at least without an MCSA. Sorry, went e/n. My job's honestly not that bad, and if I was a little less ambitious I'd probably be content to ride it to retirement and would do fine for myself doing so. But it's so boring/administrative and I know I'm under-achieving career-wise by being here.
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Sep 14, 2017 18:28
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Space Racist posted:For someone just starting their first job, what advice would you give? Are there any painful lessons you learned in your first job that you wish you knew going in? Things I wish I did/knew: - If you are having panic attacks on Sunday evening about going into work the next day, you need to leave your job immediately, as soon as humanly possible. Help Desk can be a rough job but it shouldn't be that bad. - Ask questions. Need help? Ask. Wondering how someone did something that they did? Ask. Wondering why they did it that way? Ask. Related, learn which people are worth talking to and get to know them. Avoid those that aren't (No Assholes Rule, etc.). If no one is helpful, see the first point. - Start learning Powershell now, assuming you're working on Windows. That's one I wish I'd done sooner. For any task that you find yourself doing on a regular basis, learn if there is any possible way for you to turn it into a short one or two-line PS script. Even if it's just something like Unlock-ADUser $user, or Get-ADUser $user with a few typical Properties that you need to see. - Depending on what your new job ends up being like, I wouldn't necessarily say it's a bad idea to start looking at job postings after 6 months or so. In IT the industry's a little more accepting of changing jobs fairly often (I wouldn't do that three times in a row or anything) as long as there's an upward trend, especially if it's getting out of help desk. Basically don't feel like you have to "put in your time" if something better is there and you're qualified. I left my panic attack job after 9 months and it was one of the best decisions of my life.
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Sep 14, 2017 18:42
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Space Racist posted:For someone just starting their first job, what advice would you give? Are there any painful lessons you learned in your first job that you wish you knew going in? Don't try to prove yourself by disagreeing with senior IT people, but also don't blindly listen to what they say. If something seems wrong, find out their answer as to why it's done that way. Then research their answer to confirm it's the best way for that situation, or find alternative methods. Then bring the best, most filled-in alternative to the senior and ask "Hey, I've been researching this, what about X? Will X work, and is it possibly better than current solution?" You will learn a whole lot real fast about why sometimes best practice isn't followed, or why experienced guys think in certain ways (avoid work, avoid maintenance, avoid complexity, avoid pets). Best case scenario an open-minded senior guy will let you try your alternative solution and you'll get hands on experience with it, and will then become the go-to guy for that thing when troubleshooting needs to be done. But if you approach anybody with IT experience and say "I think we should do this instead of your thing" they will either rip you apart or let you fall flat on your face when you hit a snag they were well aware of.
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Sep 14, 2017 18:59
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Japanese Dating Sim posted:
I had a job where everyone gave me a hard time for learning Powershell. I now make a lot more than any of them. The point isn't that Powershell is good. It's that you shouldn't let anyone drag you down. Learn virtualization. Play with VMware. Combine the two with PowerCLI. There's a powershell thread in Cavern of Cobol, you're welcome to post easy beginner questions.
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Sep 14, 2017 22:07
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So I finished my CCNA recently and wanted to learn scripting to show I'm not a one-trick pony. I was going to learn Powershell but one of my coworkers is scoffing and saying it is pointless when Python exists, and that I should focus on that. I just saw them as two different ways to script. Does it really matter which one I learn for starting out?
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Sep 15, 2017 01:17
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Python is super powerful and a great language but it's not installed by default on Windows systems. Powershell is. If you plan on managing a windows based environment, you'll want to know powershell
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Sep 15, 2017 01:42
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Peachfart posted:So I finished my CCNA recently and wanted to learn scripting to show I'm not a one-trick pony. I was going to learn Powershell but one of my coworkers is scoffing and saying it is pointless when Python exists, and that I should focus on that. Python if you intend to stay on the networking and security side.
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Sep 15, 2017 01:44
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Python can automate SSH sessions and Cisco CLI commands, which allows changes or backups to be scripted. It's a pretty cool way to push configs to new devices or gather info from a large number of devices already deployed. Powershell runs Windows. Anything you can do in Windows can be automated in powershell. Outside of Windows things can be cobbled into powershell scripting but it gets hokey real fast, like opening ssh sessions. Really depends on what you focus more on. If you're adventurous enough to learn both you can call powershell scripts from python and python scripts from powershell.
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Sep 15, 2017 02:19
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Powershell is pretty much embedded into every Microsoft product - Azure Automation is one of newer use cases.
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Sep 15, 2017 02:32
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big money big clit posted:Python if you intend to stay on the networking and security side. You're going to want to know PS for security also. At least on the incident response / analyst / pen testing side of things.
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Sep 15, 2017 02:33
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Honestly you should probably get at least a basic understanding of both.
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Sep 15, 2017 13:00
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Peachfart posted:So I finished my CCNA recently and wanted to learn scripting to show I'm not a one-trick pony. I was going to learn Powershell but one of my coworkers is scoffing and saying it is pointless when Python exists, and that I should focus on that. I wouldn't worry about being a one trick pony if you just got your CCNA. Networking is an in-demand skill.
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Sep 15, 2017 13:53
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I'm pretty sure this is the least bad thread to post this in, though please let me know if there's a more relevant one: I got a CCNA and A+ cert for giggles a long time ago (roughly a decade), and let it lapse to finish a non-IT branch of school due to the worst advice I ever got in my life. After a decade of ~following my dreams~ first making movies and then making food, I've come to the calm and sober decision that dreams are dumb and its time to make a change. Assuming I'm smart, professional, and hardworking as heck, and re-up those certifications which should be realistically a 1-2 month process while working my job to keep the lights on, and sincerely have a commitment to learning scripting and different techniques and new environments, how realistic is it to not have my decidedly non-IT resume not be laughed out of any HR departments for tier one positions when I'm on the wrong side of 30? I live in Austin and my salary requirements are disgustingly low and my capacity to handle stress is basically infinite considering I've handled more stress than helpdesk while also using sharp knives and fire. Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Sep 15, 2017 |
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Sep 15, 2017 16:57
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I'm a big fan of Powershell, but it probably isn't a bad idea to learn Python basics first, because it will force you to format your code correctly.
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Sep 15, 2017 17:03
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Willie Tomg posted:Assuming I'm smart, professional, and hardworking as heck, and re-up those certifications which should be realistically a 1-2 month process while working my job to keep the lights on, and sincerely have a commitment to learning scripting and different techniques and new environments, how realistic is it to not have my decidedly non-IT resume not be laughed out of any HR departments for tier one positions? I live in Austin and my salary requirements are disgustingly low and my capacity to handle stress is basically infinite considering I've handled more stress than helpdesk while also using sharp knives and fire. It's very realistic. If you're talking about tier-1, get your foot in the door type IT jobs, you should be fine. If you feel that you can reasonably study for and earn CCNA within 2 months (which might be difficult, btw - it's gotten harder and has some formerly CCNP level material on it, or at least that's what I was told when I studied for it) I don't know if it's worth your time to get the A+ to pair with it. You might run into weird niche cases where HR requires A+ even though CCNA blows it out of the water for anyone actually working in IT, but that should be pretty rare. In any case though, tier-1 helpdesk employees that have a solid customer service background that can follow processes and communicate well are going to do well in their role, and if you can communicate that in your application/interview I don't think you'd have a tough time getting your foot in the door, especially in Austin.
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Sep 15, 2017 17:03
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Japanese Dating Sim posted:It's very realistic. If you're talking about tier-1, get your foot in the door type IT jobs, you should be fine. Though I'd rather it not come to such things, I'm prepared to just drop my job and do nothing but eat, sleep, poo poo, and study on a selfmade lab of discarded networking components for that 1-2 month timeframe if required. I am not worried about the rigor of the certs. I can get those certs. Mostly I'm just dealing with anxiety over a transition to a new career path, and the thought of sending out a chef's resume for IT positions and getting laughed out of every company in town keeps me up at night, because I can't really conjure up a non-desperate tertiary backup plan within my core competencies. Thank you for the response. Your advice re: CCNA vs. A+ is jibing with what I'm hearing elsewhere. Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Sep 15, 2017 |
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Sep 15, 2017 17:23
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Worst comes to worst, you should be able to get a job with a MSP/Helpdesk with even a lapsed CCNA and no IT job experience.
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Sep 15, 2017 17:58
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Peachfart posted:Worst comes to worst, you should be able to get a job with a MSP/Helpdesk with even a lapsed CCNA and no IT job experience. In my experience in the NYC metro area, as long as you can answer technical questions that would be commensurate with a cert, whether it's lapsed or not is immaterial. I've never had one employer ask for the codes to verify my certs with MS, CompTIA, or VMware.
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Sep 15, 2017 19:57
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Willie Tomg posted:I'm pretty sure this is the least bad thread to post this in, though please let me know if there's a more relevant one: Tier 1 Help Desk positions should be zero problem. It's mostly about your customer service chops and basic troubleshooting ability. I got a tier 1 Help Desk position on zero IT resume which I pivoted into low level security in about a year (early 2009ish) on less. It's all about your reputation and your relationships when a slot opens up.
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Sep 15, 2017 19:58
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Anyone done CISA recently? Thinking about woking on that one in '18.
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Sep 16, 2017 00:06
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I had no idea Powershell was this important. I haven't used Windows at work in forever and always considered PS a crappy terminal emulator. Space Racist posted:For someone just starting their first job, what advice would you give? Are there any painful lessons you learned in your first job that you wish you knew going in? Take some Udemy courses and read a Dummies book or two on broad general concepts. It's very easy to get tied up in your particular organization's very specific technology implementation. To the extent that you're smart in one subject and dumb in another related aspect that is going to get you killed in future job interviews. Certs, obviously fix this issue really well. But certs take a lot of time whereas reading a book or two each year isn't going to make you sweat.
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Sep 16, 2017 13:38
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Martytoof posted:Anyone done CISA recently? Thinking about woking on that one in '18. That's my next one - I just took a new job at a bank doing IT Risk work and it's a lot of the work aligns pretty closely with audit. Everyone else on my team has CISA already, and I'm the only one with CISSP. I don't see nearly as much support / advice out there on Reddit and others for CISA/CRISC/CISM as there was for CISSP though.
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Sep 18, 2017 12:54
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Same. I'm trying to book some training early in '18 for this.
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Sep 18, 2017 13:49
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Woot. Finally landed a new network engineer job. 33.5% pay increase over last job, and they pay for cert testing!!!!!
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Sep 18, 2017 19:23
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MrBigglesworth posted:Woot. Finally landed a new network engineer job. 33.5% pay increase over last job, and they pay for cert testing!!!!! Congrats! What do you have in mind for your next cert?
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Sep 18, 2017 19:27
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MrBigglesworth posted:Woot. Finally landed a new network engineer job. 33.5% pay increase over last job, and they pay for cert testing!!!!! Congrats dude, sounds like getting laid off worked out okay for you. Glad to hear it! 
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Sep 18, 2017 19:41
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Was working CCNP SWITCH so I will continue with that. Then possibly renew Sec+ then finish up ROUTE and TSHOOT. Bonus is that I will be cc debt free in about 45 days too with severance package. Save a bunch on first 2 months of job and replace my 99 Altima with a new car.
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Sep 18, 2017 19:44
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MrBigglesworth posted:Was working CCNP SWITCH so I will continue with that. Then possibly renew Sec+ then finish up ROUTE and TSHOOT. Bonus is that I will be cc debt free in about 45 days too with severance package. Save a bunch on first 2 months of job and replace my 99 Altima with a new car. hell yeah 
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Sep 18, 2017 19:47
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MrBigglesworth posted:Woot. Finally landed a new network engineer job. 33.5% pay increase over last job, and they pay for cert testing!!!!! Great news man! Worth the wait
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Sep 18, 2017 20:08
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Congrats!
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Sep 18, 2017 22:15
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Any recommendations for studying for the CCNA? Can you get by with books and Packet Tracer or is something like Boson a better bet? Also, you can combine the CCENT and the ICND2 for the CCNA, or am I all mixed up?
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Sep 19, 2017 03:18
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This guy is good to watch, but its for the older test, a few topics are updated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=user?ShrikeCast I used Odoms book, Packet Tracer and these videos. CCENT is ICND1 and ICND2 is the second part, so taking both and passing is CCNA.
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Sep 19, 2017 04:11
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You can get the CCNA by either taking the full CCNA test, which can be rather hard, or by taking both the ICND1(which after you pass, you become a CCENT) and the ICND2. I found the two tests to be easier, as you can focus on a narrower set of objectives.
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Sep 19, 2017 06:11
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Anybody know where I can get some packet tracer assignments?
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Sep 19, 2017 22:37
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