Welcome to CellStream’s Networking and Computing Tips resource center, where technology professionals, students, and enthusiasts can find practical guidance, troubleshooting techniques, and real-world solutions for today’s networking and computing challenges. Our goal is to help you work smarter, solve problems faster, and build a stronger foundation of technical knowledge.
Whether you’re configuring a network, optimizing system performance, learning a new technology, or troubleshooting a difficult issue, you’ll find valuable insights drawn from decades of industry experience. From Wireshark packet analysis and broadband technologies to Windows, Linux, cybersecurity, Wi-Fi, and Internet protocols, our tips are designed to be practical, actionable, and immediately useful.
• Step-by-step technical guides and how-to articles
• Networking troubleshooting techniques and best practices
• Wireshark tips, packet analysis workflows, and protocol insights
• Windows, Linux, and computing optimization recommendations
• Cybersecurity awareness and protection strategies
• Broadband, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, TCP/IP, and Internet technology guidance
• Productivity tips and tools for network engineers and IT professionals
• Improving network troubleshooting efficiency
• Optimizing computer and operating system performance
• Securing devices, accounts, and data
• Capturing and analyzing packets with Wireshark
• Understanding TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi technologies
• Using industry tools more effectively
We’re always looking for new ideas, questions, and topics to explore. If there’s a networking or computing subject you’d like us to cover, or if you need help solving a technical challenge, connect with us through our Discord community or contact us directly.
Please note that not all tips, procedures, and configuration examples apply to every operating system, network device, software version, or vendor platform. Always verify compatibility and test changes in a controlled environment before implementing them in production networks.
Post Views: 3,467 If you have been to one of my Wireshark or Wi-Fi classes then you know I often criticize Microsoft Windows for some of its – well – inexplicable approaches to usage and security. Here is yet another example. Windows stores several important pieces of information in Wi-Fi profiles to facilitate automatic connections
Find and Display All Your Wi-Fi Passwords in Windows Read More »
Post Views: 5,714 Scenario Let’s say you have a DHCP server running on a Cisco Switch that is behaving strangely and you want to examine the traffic over a couple of hours while not creating a gigantic unmanageable capture file. A note here: I am doing this on a Cisco switch, but most all vendor
Troubleshooting Your Network Using Port Mirroring and Packet Capture Read More »
Post Views: 3,554 In this article, I wanted to provide a guide to using ping – ICMP Echo – to troubleshoot your network. Most people use ping on their platform to test if they can reach a given destination. Just open up a terminal (Linux or MAC OSx) or command line (Windows: Start> Run> cmd)
Troubleshooting The Internet Using Ping (a.k.a. ICMP) Read More »
Post Views: 7,946 In a recent class I was asked for some details on BGP Autonomous System (AS or ASN) Numbers. I thought I would document and provide a more complete answer here for others to learn from as well. What is the AS Number? Let’s begin with a definition. An Autonomous System Number (AS
BGP Autonomous System (AS) Numbers Read More »
Post Views: 4,468 In this article I want to visit a “not used enough” Linux tool called logger. As with managing any system, you want to accurately annotate historical events and adding entries into the system log file is a great way to accomplish this. You can view the system log file with this command:
Leveraging the Linux Logger Read More »
Post Views: 3,335 Too many people shrug off Linux for fears of security with a free and open source operating system, even today. For those of us who know that Linux is no less or more secure than any other operating system, we must be sensitive to this and we must be well versed in
Linux Security Focused Commands We All Need to Use Read More »
Post Views: 3,267 Hello my Networking and IPv6 researchers and enthusiasts. I just started a PCAP repository at Github for IPv6 Extension Header (EH) packet capture examples. Honestly I found nothing worthwhile on the web, that’s not to say they don’t exists in some niche place, but I wanted something easy to access and easy
IPv6 Extension Header PCAP Repository Read More »
Post Views: 3,126 An essential function when administering a Linux system is viewing, configuring and managing users and groups. I cover adding users in this article: https://www.cellstream.com/2022/04/06/using-the-useradd-command-to-create-user-accounts-in-linux/ That said, viewing users is done using a few simple commands. How To View Users on a Linux System Every user on a Linux system, whether created as
Viewing Users/System Users on Linux Read More »
Post Views: 5,769 Like most operating systems, Linux can have multiple user accounts. The system administrator or root account, or users with sudo privileges are responsible for managing these users, as well as managing those accounts. Linux is a multi-user system, which means that more than one person can interact with the same system at
Using the useradd Command to Create User Accounts in Linux Read More »
Post Views: 2,231 Hi everyone! Happy Thanksgiving 2021. Just released – Wireshark 3.6.0!!! Why is this important to me, you, and everyone who troubleshoots Voice traffic using Wireshark? Well, there are many changes to the voice related functionality in Wireshark in this (actually as part of the development 3.5.0 – you can read more on
Important Updates to Wireshark for Voice and VoIP Read More »
Post Views: 63,106 Check out these great references as well: Our custom profiles repository for Wireshark Our Udemy course on Wireshark Our Udemy course on Wireless Packet capture Hi Everyone! If you are like me, you use Wireshark every day. For me that means troubleshooting many different network applications and traffic types, including Voice traffic
Wireshark 3.5 Development Release adds significant voice upgrades Read More »
Post Views: 3,186 Here is a quick and clever technique in Wireshark. Let’s say you want to present, testify, or teach about a packet capture in Wireshark, but you want to redact information that is not important, perhaps hiding an error that was made, or some information that is private, or some other reason. Redaction
Redaction Technique in Wireshark Read More »
Post Views: 5,636 Say it isn’t true! For the first time in the world (for me) I can put a Wi-Fi interface on a Windows 10 machine into Monitor mode!!!!! Monitor Mode in Windows At Last! Monitor mode in Windows is important to broadband technicians because it allows them to capture and analyze raw 802.11
Monitor Mode in Windows At Last Read More »
Post Views: 2,777 I got this question the other day: “What does the BGP Next-Hop-Self command actually do?” It is a great question that I tried to answer in a brief description without success, and actually repeated my answer several times. It was clear to me that my answer was not being understood in terms
What does the BGP Next-Hop-Self Command Actually do? Read More »
Post Views: 2,311 This article will discuss how to use some cool bandwidth monitoring tools in Linux so that you have a screen that looks like this: The first thing we will need is a multi-tab flexible terminal emulator. My choice is Tilix, but there are others like Terminator. sudo apt install tilix -y Now
Cool Bandwidth Monitoring in Linux Read More »
