THELINEMAN OS v1.9.4

> INITIALIZING NETWORK STACK...

> LOADING FORTINET MODULES... OK

> MOUNTING /home/lineman... OK

> APACHE2 SERVICE... STARTED

> CCNA STUDY SESSION... ACTIVE

> IRONMAN TRAINING LOG... SYNCED

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THE LINEMAN

// BY DYLAN DOYLE — NETWORK ANALYST
CCNA 200-301 · PACKET TRACER LABS
INTERACTIVE STUDY TOOLS · FORTINET HOME LAB

STUDYING IN PUBLIC.
ONE PACKET AT A TIME._
[ ▶ PICK UP WHERE YOU LEFT OFF ] CONTINUE ▶
[ ★ NEW — DAILY CCNA DRILL ] Six fresh questions every day — subnetting, IOS commands, troubleshooting. Grade instantly, build a streak, come back tomorrow. Free, no signup.
▶ TODAY'S DRILL
★ STUDYING FOR THE CCNA? START HERE ★ All 53 CCNA 200-301 exam topics · every covered article, lab and drill in one place · recommended study order ▶

Brand new? How to study for the CCNA  ·  Want it ordered & tracked? The guided study path ▶

[ ★ SUBNETTING PRACTICE ] Drill subnetting on its own — randomized questions for network ID, broadcast, host range and adjacent subnets, graded per field. Free, no login.
FREE SUBNET QUIZ ▶

★ LATEST POSTS

GUIDE WHY SUBNETTING FINALLY
CLICKED FOR ME
Three weeks of confusion. One diagram that changed everything. Here's the mental model that actually works — and why most guides start from the wrong end.
GUIDE OSPF MULTI-AREA & LSA TYPES:
WHAT EACH LSA CARRIES
Why OSPF carves the domain into areas, the four router roles (internal / backbone / ABR / ASBR), every CCNA-relevant LSA type (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7) with originator and flooding scope, and the five OSPF packet types tied to the adjacency state machine.
GUIDE IPV6 FOR THE CCNA:
COMPRESSION, TYPES & EUI-64
The short IPv6 guide for the exam — 128-bit anatomy, the two compression rules, the six address types, and EUI-64 step-by-step. Paired with three free drill tools.
GUIDE OSPF EXPLAINED:
LINK-STATE ROUTING FOR THE CCNA
No CLI — just the mental model. Distance-vector vs link-state, LSDB & SPF, areas, router-ID picking order, the process-ID trap, and wildcard masks. Read this before you touch the lab.
GUIDE OSPF ADJACENCY STATES:
WHY YOURS IS STUCK IN EXSTART
Every OSPF state — DOWN, INIT, 2-WAY, EXSTART, EXCHANGE, FULL — and the one-line fix for each failure mode. MTU mismatch, one-way Hellos, flapping timers, and the troubleshooting decision tree.
GUIDE THE 1500-BYTE LIE:
WHY YOUR VPN HANGS ON BIG FILES
The VPN's up. Pings are 18ms. Web works. Then a 50MB download hangs at 4%. Here's the math, the captures, and the MSS-clamping fix — per platform.
REFERENCE SUBNETTING CHEAT SHEET:
CIDR, BLOCK SIZES & HOST COUNTS
Every prefix /8 through /32 in one place. Subnet mask, block size, total addresses, usable hosts, and wildcard mask. Save the image or bookmark the page.
VIEW ALL POSTS ▶

⬇ PRACTICE LABS

[ FREE · PACKET TRACER ] VLAN SEGMENTATION LAB 1 · TRAINEE Two switches, six PCs. Students on VLAN 10, Staff on VLAN 100. Configure from scratch and verify isolation. ▶ READ + DOWNLOAD
[ FREE · PACKET TRACER ] INTER-VLAN ROUTING LAB 2 · ANALYST Add SW3 and a router. Configure dot1q subinterfaces on R1 to route between Student and Staff subnets. ▶ READ + DOWNLOAD
[ FREE · BROWSER LAB ] STP ROOT BRIDGE ELECTION LAB 3 · ANALYST The 4-step STP algorithm, port roles, port costs — then drill it in an interactive browser lab with quiz mode and a sandbox. ▶ READ + LAUNCH LAB
[ FREE · PACKET TRACER ] RAPID SPANNING TREE LAB 4 · ANALYST Same triangle as Lab 3, faster recovery. Configure 802.1w / Rapid-PVST+ and watch a link failure reconverge in under a second. ▶ READ + DOWNLOAD
[ FREE · PACKET TRACER ] OSPF SINGLE AREA LAB 5 · ANALYST Multilayer switch and one router, three PC LANs and a server segment. Configure OSPFv2 area 0, watch the adjacency reach FULL, and verify routes end-to-end. ▶ READ + DOWNLOAD
[ FREE · PACKET TRACER ] STATIC & FLOATING STATIC LAB 6 · ANALYST Six routers, four LANs. Build full reachability with nothing but ip route, then watch AD-100 statics beat pre-configured OSPF on a contested link. Bonus: flip the contest with a floating static. ▶ READ + DOWNLOAD
★ VIEW ALL LABS

★ ABOUT

░░░░░░░
░ DD ░
░░░░░░░
DYLAN DOYLE NET ANALYST · LVL 23
ROUTING
72
FORTINET
80
LINUX
65
ENDURANCE
85
CCNA
45

I used to hold the line on a football field. Now I hold it in a network rack.

I'm Dylan Doyle — a network analyst at Halton District School Board, based in Burlington, ON. I studied the BIT NET joint program between Carleton University and Algonquin College — four years learning how networks actually work, then two summers at Halton's IS-IS department proving it. They kept me on full time after graduation.

Now I'm working toward my CCNA, running a Fortinet home lab — FortiGate 60F, FortiSwitch 124D, and a FortiAP 421E — and self-hosting everything I build on Linux from scratch. This site included.

Outside the rack, I'm training. I've completed an Olympic triathlon and a half marathon, and I'm building toward a full Ironman — slowly, deliberately, the same way I approach everything. One packet at a time.

TheLineman is where I document all of it — the certs, the lab, the grind. If you're on a similar path, pull up a chair._

CCNA FORTINET LINUX APACHE2 CARLETON BIT NET HALTON DSB IRONMAN BURLINGTON ON

★ CONTACT

INSERT COIN TO CONNECT Fellow IT student? Networking pro?
Just want to talk shop?
Reach out — always happy to connect.

★ RESOURCES

⚙ HOME LAB

[ FIREWALL ] FORTIGATE 60F Perimeter firewall, VPN, threat inspection. The brain of the home lab. Full UTM enabled. ● ONLINE
[ SWITCH ] FORTISWITCH 124D 24-port managed switch. VLANs, trunking, FortiLink managed directly by the FortiGate. ● ONLINE
[ WIRELESS ] FORTIAP 421E Dual-band AP managed via FortiGate wireless controller. Multiple SSIDs per VLAN. ● ONLINE
[ SERVER ] LINUX BOX POP!_OS · APACHE2 Self-hosted Pop!_OS + Apache2 box, built and configured from scratch. Hosted this site until the move to Cloudflare Pages — still online running the home lab. ● ONLINE
[ MONITOR ] OBSERVABILITY PLANNED: GRAFANA Deploying Grafana + Prometheus for full visibility across the Fortinet stack and Linux server. ◌ IN PROGRESS
[ CERT LAB ] CCNA STUDY ENV GNS3 + PACKET TRACER Virtual topologies for exam scenarios. OSPF, BGP, STP, and VLANs running daily. ◌ ACTIVE

★ CURRENTLY BUILDING

2026-05-28 "Back to Tools" on every drill + the ACL drill gets a "Keep Going" block
2026-05-27 Off the home server — TheLineman moves to Cloudflare Pages
2026-05-27 Dropped .html sitewide — clean URLs are now canonical
2026-05-26 GEO overhaul — built to be cited by AI search, not just ranked
2026-05-25 /guides added · /blog renamed to /articles · CCNA-first rebrand
FULL BUILD LOG ▶