Junior Network Administrator study guide
Junior Network Administrator · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Junior Network Administrator credential is an entry-level certification for people who are moving into hands-on network operations: help-desk technicians stepping up, career changers who have completed a foundational course, and students preparing for their first infrastructure role. It signals that a candidate can reason about how packets move, how addresses are planned, and how a small network is built, secured, and kept running. The Junior Network Administrator study guide has 8 sections and about 2,902 words.
01Network Fundamentals and Models
This domain tests whether you can trace a single request from an application on one host to an application on another, naming the layer and protocol responsible at every step. Expect questions that map devices, protocols, and protocol data units (PDUs) to the OSI and TCP/IP models.
399 words, about 2 min02IP Addressing, Subnetting, and Routing Basics
This domain covers IPv4 addressing, subnet arithmetic, and how a host or router decides where to send a packet. Most questions are calculation-based, so practise the arithmetic until it is automatic.
321 words, about 2 min03Network Devices, Cabling, and Topologies
This domain tests the hardware that moves frames and the media that carry bits, plus the shapes networks are built in. Expect matching questions on device-to-layer mapping and on cable category, connector, and distance limits.
378 words, about 2 min04Ethernet Switching and VLANs
This domain covers how switches build forwarding tables, how VLANs segment a LAN, and how Spanning Tree keeps redundant links from melting the network. A switch records the source MAC of every frame and the port it arrived on in its MAC address table.
374 words, about 2 min05Wireless Networking Basics
This domain tests radio fundamentals, the 802.11 family, and the security and design decisions that make a wireless LAN actually work. 802.11b/g use 2.4 GHz (11 Mbps and 54 Mbps); 802.11a uses 5 GHz; 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) uses both and adds MIMO; 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) is 5 GHz only; 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6/6E) adds 6 GHz and OFDMA.
352 words, about 2 min06Network Services (DHCP, DNS, NAT, NTP)
This domain covers the services every network depends on: addressing, name resolution, address translation, and time. Questions tend to be protocol-and-port specific, so learn the port numbers alongside the behaviour.
373 words, about 2 min07Network Security Fundamentals
This domain tests the vocabulary of security plus the practical controls a junior administrator configures: ACLs, segmentation, authentication, and hardening. CIA: confidentiality, integrity, availability.
327 words, about 2 min08Monitoring, Troubleshooting, and Documentation
This domain covers how you find out what is broken, how you know what normal looks like, and how you record it so the next person does not start from zero. Define the problem and gather information, form a hypothesis, test it, act, verify, and document.
378 words, about 2 min