TSSR path: 59 days to systems and networks
Fifty-nine one-hour sessions, one a day, from 3 November to 31 December, in four modules. The goal: start a Systems and Networks Senior Technician course (TSSR, its French initials) with the basics already in hand, and a notebook to prove it.
The TSSR diploma, in brief
Technicien supérieur systèmes et réseaux is a vocational title (titre professionnel) awarded by the French Ministry of Labour, at level 5 (two years after the baccalauréat), listed in the national register of professional certifications (RNCP). The technician who holds it installs and maintains an organisation's workstations, servers and network, and supports its users. The official reference framework, its skill blocks and the bodies that prepare it can be looked up in France Compétences' RNCP search (search for "Technicien supérieur systèmes et réseaux"). This path does not replace the course: it prepares for it.
The method, the same every day
| Time | Phase | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 20 min | Theory | The session's lesson (on the module page), a video or an article on the side, note-taking. |
| 30 min | Practice | Exercises, hands-on work in virtual machines, the simulator. |
| 10 min | Recap | Three lines in the notebook, then redo the day's exercise without notes. |
The recap is the phase people skip, and it is the one that makes things stick: redoing from memory forces you to retrieve the information, and retrieval is what anchors it.
The tools, installed once (day 1)
- VirtualBox, Oracle's free hypervisor, with two virtual machines:
- a Debian VM ("netinst" image);
- a Windows VM: Microsoft offers a free 90-day evaluation of Windows 11 Enterprise, with no product key. It covers the two months of the path with room to spare.
- Cisco Packet Tracer, Cisco's network simulator: free with a Cisco Networking Academy (NetAcad) account. The download goes through the short free course "Getting Started with Cisco Packet Tracer".
- Wireshark, the packet analyser.
- A digital notebook: Obsidian, Notion, or a plain folder of text files, one file per day.
Plan on 16 GB of RAM on the host to run both VMs at once comfortably; with 8 GB, run them one after the other. Windows 11 requires a TPM 2.0 chip and Secure Boot: VirtualBox 7 can emulate both, tick them when you create the VM.
The golden rule
One hour every day beats seven hours on Sunday. If you miss a day, you do not catch up the next day: you shift everything by one day, and you trim module 4. The dates shown assume a start on 3 November; only the order and the regularity matter.
The four modules
Each module is one page: its sessions follow one another, each with its goal, its lesson, its step-by-step practice and its recap. Tick a module once all its sessions are done; your progress stays in your browser.
Recommended free resources
- OpenClassrooms — Apprenez le fonctionnement des réseaux TCP/IP (in French; modules 1 and 2)
- OpenClassrooms — Administrez un système Linux (in French; modules 1 and 3; it expects you to have taken "Initiez-vous à Linux")
- Cisco Networking Academy catalogue: "Networking Basics" (free, self-paced) and "CCNA: Introduction to Networks", the first of the three CCNA courses (check in the catalogue whether it is open to you self-paced or through a partner institution)
- YouTube channels by TSSR and network trainers, for binary and subnetting: pick one where the trainer writes the calculations out by hand.
- Subnetting exercises (search for "subnetting exercises"): no calculator while training, it is only for checking.
The start-of-course checklist, to tick on 31/12
- I convert binary ↔ decimal in under 30 seconds.
- I split a /24 into subnets without a calculator.
- I explain the OSI model and the journey of a web request.
- I administer a Linux VM: users, permissions, services, packages.
- I install and configure Windows properly.
- I use ping, traceroute, ipconfig, dig and Wireshark.
- I write a small bash script that works.
- I have a documented project to show.
A box that will not tick is not a failure: it is the list of what you will work on first when the course starts.
- 1TSSR module 1: hardware and system fundamentalsDays 1 to 14: the computer, UEFI, binary, Windows, Linux, storage and virtualisation, one hour a day.
- 2TSSR module 2: networks, the heart of the jobDays 15 to 28: OSI and TCP/IP, IPv4 and IPv6 addressing, subnetting, VLANs, ARP, routing, DHCP, DNS, NAT and Wi-Fi.
- 3TSSR module 3: system administration and servicesDays 29 to 42: HTTP, SSH, mail, web server, Active Directory, SMB sharing, printing, backup, monitoring, bash, PowerShell, cloud and containers.
- 4TSSR module 4: security, consolidation and a mock start of courseDays 43 to 59: security, MFA, firewall, VPN, GDPR, the support job, labs redone, a mock exam and a final virtual-SME project.