Networking Layer

Learning Goals

• Explain the networking stack at a high level

Introduction

The network stack is sometimes intimidating - how does information get from one computer to another? Most of the confusion is because the underlying systems are genuinely complicated. They solve a ton of important problems - guaranteeing that information can get from place to place quickly and safely.

Pre-check

• Write down a summary of what you know about networking. You might start with your definitions of client / server, http, request / response cycle, and IP
• What are the physical components of networking that you are familiar with?

Reading

Read this blog post (by a fellow Flatiron SEC!) on The Architecture of the Internet.

Post-check

• Draw a diagram of the internet. Try to include as many parts and terms from the post as you can.
• Use traceroute to see the hops between your computer and some web address. See also the output of curl, ping, dig, nmap, and lsof

Further Reading

Check out this Yak Shave on Gem Install for an example of using networking tools to debug an issue in the network stack.