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This page was last edited on February 18, 2026

Currently, I'm very busy building a network rack, so I can become a competent and well-rounded network administrator, and network engineer.

Reading

I tend to read textbooks during the day, and there hasn't been much time the past month. Having said that, I have manged to read a couple of chapters of the "Network Warrior" by Gary A. Donahue in braille on one of my workstations – but distractions are frequent – so I'm thinking of loading the book on my HIMS SensePlayer and listen to while I'm having lunch.

As for "Networking For Dummies" by Doug Lowe, I've not even started it yet, but there is plenty of time to start working my way through it.

The evenings have been different, as I've had more time and currently finishing "Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet" by Katie Hafner, and Matthew Lyon, which I'm listening to on the Audible app on my iPhone.

Working on

The past month has been spent either researching something network-related, or making enquiries about networking equipment, ordering it, then unpacking it, and finally building my 16U network rack – hence the lack of time for reading.

It was my intention to install two "MikroTik Chateau 5G R17 Routers" in the network rack, as I could configure it via SSH. Unfortunately, neither unit recognised my Manx Telecom SIM cards. So I returned both units. Once I had received a refund I opted to get two "Teltonika TRB501 Industrial 5G Gateways". Both units recognised my SIM cards without issue.

The nice thing about the Teltonika TRB501 is its size. I found a customised 1U rack mount that I could put both units in. I still need to decide on a pair of antennas, and how I'm going to mount them on the server rack.

The units can be configured via a SSH seesion, but I haven't had much time to figure it out, yet, other than to SSH into the units.

There are five "MikroTik CRS418 Cloud Router Switches" – the CRS418-8P-8G-2S+RM model – since this rack is about experimenting with network topologies – like the bus, star, ring, and various hybrids – I though the versatility of the CRS418 would be a good choice. It will let me play around with various configurations such as setting one unit as an edge router, a core router, or border router. The others units can be configured as dedicated switches with Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching.

Like the Teltonika TRB501 the MikroTik CRS418 can be configured via a SSH session. This is what I'm currently learning.

The rack is almost built. The only thing I need to do is install the firewall server, which is currently on hold due to lack of funds. I've done my research and have settled on getting two "Protectli Vault Pro VP6650 6 Port" units that will be configured as a cluster.

I was going to put them on a Tecmojo Rack Shelf that I have lying around the lab. Then when I was reading the user manual for the Protectli Vault Pro, I found that Protectli make a dedicated rack shelf where two units can be bolted to the shelf. A bit more digging around I found that I could only order it from the EU. So I looked on eBay and found one for sale. It was second-hand, but the price was so good I couldn't resist. When it arrived, it didn't even have a mark on it, according to two sighted members of the household. It's now in my server rack waiting for the two units.