To be a comprehensive source of information is something that any and every
author attempts to be in their works. While writing The TCP/IP Guide: A
Comprehensive, Illustrated Internet Protocols Reference, Charles Kozierok
nothing short of comprehensive. In this 1616 page, 88 chapter reference of
the TCP/IP protocol set, all the important topics are covered.
Normally, when I review books, I give a little bit of information on each
chapter. In this case, that would be a little drastic and cause an extremely
long review.
Vitals:
Audience:
Due to size, it may seem like this book is solely for students or engineers.
However, The TCP/IP Guide is great for anyone and everyone as it can
act both as a reference guide and a textbook.
Summary:
Whatever little I write as a summary here just will not do this guide
the justice it deserves for the effort of the author. Although the book
covers such a wide variety of topics, each one is covered very thoroughly.
Beginning with basic networking concepts and moving into the OSI (Open
Systems Interconnection) model, the bases are fully covered. He even goes so
far in depth as to discuss the standards organizations that contribute to,
support, and govern networking and the Internet. Once the OSI model is
covered, he goes on to talk about how TCP, UDP, and IP protocols integrate
themselves into the OSI model.
The first topic that is covered within the TCP/IP protocol suite are the
interface protocols: SLIP and PPP. Every major PPP and SLIP sub item is
covered within the chapters. These include: LCP, PAP, CHAP, ECP, PPP MP, just
to name a few.
The next set of chapters is covering ARP, RARP, IPv4, IPv6, IP NAT and
IP Sec. This basically covers how to move from level 2 to level 3 in the OSI
model. Following the OSI model up, he then covers ICMPv4 and ICMPv6 prior to
proceeding into routing. The routing protocols covered are: RIP, RIP-2, RIPng
OSPF, BGP3, BGP4, GGP, EGP, EGRP, EIGRP, and HELLO.
After thoroughly covering how data moves from place to place on the lower
levels of the OSI model, he begins by covering TCP and UDP by session
establishment and handshaking. Since the book is about TCP protocols, there
is a lot of discussion and diagrams of message headers and the theory behind
TCP and UDP being designed the way they are.
Since all these protocols are merely transport mechanisms for higher level
applications, a great deal of time in this book is dedicated to how those
higher level applications function. Some of these applications and systems are:
DNS, NFS, BOOTP, DHCP, SNMP, RMON, URI and URL structure, FTP, TFP, Email
systems including SMTP and MIME structures, HTTP (transfers, encoding, messages,
entities, etc), NNTP, and Gopher (again to name just a few). All of these
applications that now have counterparts that support IPv6 are also examined
and broken down. Each one of the topics listed above have associated diagrams
and message layouts to allow as deep a comprehension as is desired by the
reader.
He finishes up the book talking about remote application protocols and
troubleshooting tools. This is especially handy information to have at your
fingertips if you are constantly troubleshooting network or application level
issues. He even goes so far as to break down common UNIX and Windows commands
into their command lines and what the output is actually saying about the state
of the packet, interface, application, or network.
Opinion:
When I first looked at this book, I was a little intimidated at having to
read and process such a large volume of information. After getting into the
book a little, I realized that information was not to be read from cover to
cover, but to be used and explored as needed. After coming to that realization
and taking the contained information in slowly, I realized just how completely
instrumental this book will be having it as a reference when dealing with the
everyday issues that I, as an avid computer user, deals with.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has even the slightest interest
in the way networking or any of the inter-networking technologies function. The
ability to go only as in depth as you like (at any level) makes it a must own
for the computer enthusiast all the way up to the developmental engineers.
Reviewed by: Eric Lubow
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