[Notorious]

Networking 101
You're connected to the internet. How?


Yeah, there's already a networking guide/series done by @MrSecurity but everyone explains in different ways so why not? No harm is done, if anything there's no excuse for skids. You can find his first guide here, which explains the things I'll touch in my second part of Networking 101.

Let me get started now. So, you're connected to the internet an... how are you connected? You probably never ask yourself this but do you know the answer? Networking works on this, creating webs of nodes that can communicate between each other. The internet is a big one and we'll get to that later.

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What is Networking?
Well, I can give you the literal definition or help you get to it.
As you can imagine, networks sound like huge connections made between computers that allow us to use Facebook, Instagram, our emails and anything else. The only network you can actually talk about right now is the internet, right? Not at all. Networks range from simple groups of computers in an office to worldwide data transfers. Your own house has a network from the moment that there are more than two devices connected to your WiFi. Networks are based on a simple principle: sharing.
Because computers are powerful, networks multiply that.

Network - Two or more devices that can share data.

That is what a network is, so networking is the action of setting this up and maintaining it.

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Types of Networks
As with everything, we have different types of networks. This is majorly based on their physical space coverage rather than strength. Head first:

Spoiler:

LAN - Local Area Network
This is the most basic type of network. By definition it is limited to a small area, for example an office or house setup, and is hardly ever extended to anything bigger than that. If it does though, it's most likely that it's been subdivided into workgroups which are groups of computer that are connected to each other and that share the same set of resources between them.

WAN - Wide Area Network
Well, this one you can just imagine. WANs are networks based in much larger areas like metropolitan cities or even globally and, as you've probably guessed, you're on one right now: the internet. They differ from LANs because of this:
Wider Ranges - WANs operate globally, for example, whereas LANs operate in small areas like offices.
Slower Speeds - Transfer speed for data is much slower on WANs rather than on LANs
On-Demand Connections - WANs can be permanently connected to certain devices or can have an on-request connection service whereas LANs only offer the first option.

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Entities
Entities. They connect to networks and are the very definition of network. Without them we couldn't talk about networking and we like to differentiate between every one of them depending on their actual function internally. So let's check this out:

Spoiler:

Clients - Also known as workstations
We are clients. Any device that is connected to a network is called a client, it's the default name that we give to anything which pops up. Client usually are the ones that ask for information and that wait until they receive it.
Hosts - Where to go
Hosts generally are the network devices that have a TCP/IP address available. It can also be the case of someone calling a server the host, since it hosts the data so be sure about what you're talking about exactly.
Servers - Big boys
Servers are the computers that give us the information we ask. They usually are moderately strong machines that host tons of data, ready to be accessed. They literally serve us.

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Connection Types
I won't be talking about ethernet or WiFi here, more about the actual connection between network devices. I'll be talking about how nodes (that means devices connected to the network) share resources between each other.

Spoiler:

P2P - Peer-to-Peer connections, pretty simple to grasp.
In this kind of connection "there are no servers". Notice the double quotes. This means that every device will directly connect to another device for information sharing. Every single device works as a "Server + Client Machine" which means that it won't only take resources but also offer them to other nodes on the network.
Data on this network is decentralized, meaning that every file on the network will be subdivided: some of it is on one device while another part of it is located on another device.

Client/Server - Majorly used network
This is the most used network type since it has more security and is much more organized. Contrarily to P2P, Client/Server is centralized which means that the data resides on one single device, the server.
They're easier to work on since all the data is stored on the server which means maintenance and "inventory" of all data is going to be done on one machine. Every client doesn't have to go around asking other nodes for certain data: they just ask the server which rapidly gives it to the client.

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Found it interesting but have some questions? Ask me anything and I'll respond as quickly as possible if I feel like it.
Discussion is the basis of anything serious.