u/MercyRawr

I'm just finishing up a lab simulating an Enterprise network in Packet Tracer with basic CCNA topics such as STP, HSRP, EtherChannel, OSPF, Layer 2 Edge Port Security, etc.

In my current job in Help Desk, I get to configure SonicWall ACLs, set up VLANs, and maintain firewalls using SonicWall's NSM. Our setup is very rough though as we don't have a Syslog server and the MSP doesn't care too much about network security.

I want to focus heavily on Network Security for my next lab, but I know it'll be near impossible to use enterprise-grade devices in GNS3/EVE-NG as they require licenses and I'm broke. Are there strong and fairly similar alternatives I could use?

I've been trying to study setting up a WLC in Packet Tracer, but am running into issues. It's connected to an Access Switch with a trunk port allowing VLANs 40 (Wi-Fi) and 90 (Management). the Management VLAN is the native vlan for the connection.

Whenever I connect the WLC to the Access Switch, everything is fine. But when I open the web UI and do the initial setup (Creating Management interface), it looks like a broadcast storm occurs that causes Packet Tracer to crash. From what I see, Spanning Tree seems to be working fine, but I could be wrong.

Not sure if it's against the rules, but I can also send the Packet Tracer file if needed. I know Packet Tracer has a lot of quirks with Wireless so I'm not sure if maybe it's just a PT issue.

I've recently gotten into IT and gotten my Security+ and Network+ and almost ready for my CCNA. I currently work in help desk and fortunately have the opportunity to work on network deployments including setting up SonicWall high availability, configuring ACLs, configuring VLANs, etc. I eventually want to reach a Network Security Engineer role.

I know automation is extremely important, but I don't know what automation tools are modern and worth learning currently. The CCNA has an extremely vague explanation for things such as Ansible, Puppet, Chef, etc. What automation tools are worth learning if I want to move up asap?

Is Jeremy's practice exam supposed to be extremely hard, or am I just cooked? I honestly gave up 70 questions in with like 30% of them right, some of the questions felt very out of scope. I used Neil Anderson's course for study

I have never really had real hobbies besides studying and gaming until recently. I’ve been going to the gym and just walking around and exploring. I remember liking badminton a lot in high school, but I wanted to see if anyone knew any places to get into it in Philly. I am in south Philly for reference, but I have a car to drive to other places

I am currently 5 months into a T1 Help Desk MSP role that provides me much more experience than T1 at most other companies, and soon to be promoted to T2. I configure and roll out Conditional Access Policies for multiple client tenants, configure firewall ACLs and work with external NOC teams to verify failover connectivity with ISPs. I also act on identity and device compromises using Huntress EDR.

I have my Network+ and Security+. I am pretty close to finishing the CCNA, but as I look for entry level security jobs, not many seem to care for it. My mindset when starting to study for it was that if you don’t understand how networks work, you can’t defend them. But an entry level SOC Analyst isn’t really doing the defending, they’re just monitoring alerts and logs in a specific context.

Can I frame the CCNA in a way that makes me a stronger candidate for security positions?

How can I allow Virtual Office access over an IPSec tunnel? I've allowed 4433 from the subnets on the other side of the tunnel, I've tried both VPN -> SSLVPN and VPN -> LAN, pointing to the x0 interface. I've added the address group from the subnets on the other side into the SSLVPN Services group. I am still not able to reach 4433 from across the tunnel.

How can I allow Virtual Office access over an IPSec tunnel? I've allowed 4433 from the subnets on the other side of the tunnel, I've tried both VPN -> SSLVPN and VPN -> LAN, pointing to the x0 interface. I've added the address group from the subnets on the other side into the SSLVPN Services group. I am still not able to reach 4433 from across the tunnel.

In 2022, I was convinced by my family to go to Penn State (with the assumption they’d provide me with assistance). At one point, a family dispute happened and I was provided practically no assistance, my FAFSA was not even completed. This caused me to owe a $15k debt and have to drop out. In the 4 years since, almost 5k in fees have been added on and it seems to be with a collection agency.

I’m not sure if the collection agency owns it or if Penn state still owes it, but after not being on my credit since 2022, it has popped up again causing me to go from 740 - 650

I currently only make 45k/year, but I am expecting to make closer to 57k within the next few months. Currently, my monthly expenses are low (500-700) but I live with my sister who was one of the toxic ones in the dispute, so I am hoping to possibly move out soon

I have about 3k in credit card debt that I plan on fully paying off within the next month, which will then just leave me with the 20k collection.

How should I approach this? Is there a valid path for me to pay only a fraction of this debt? It is with Eastern Revenue.

I am currently studying for the CCNA and also CySA+ and I would like to set up a home lab to focus on security and networking concepts. I've done a few smaller labs using VMware, but managing the VMs gets a bit annoying when it gets to 3+.

I know of Proxmox, but I don't have a dedicated machine to run these machines on. I have a decently strong laptop which could probably work, but that's not the most reliable.

Is there any better centralized management solutions that can be run on the same desktop I'm running the VMs on?