First, I must say that I have great respect for the author. My 3 star rating in no way reflects his authority on TCP/IP, but rather how the book met my needs.

This is a college textbook, not a technical manual. There is a huge amount of theoretical detail about the workings of the protocols, but no information at all on field applications. I was looking for something to help me in analyzing packet captures and diagnosing network outages. Regrettably, this is not the book I needed.

If you are a grad student looking to make a career in the ivory tower, this book is for you. If you work in the trenches, operating a real network, this book will probably end up on your shelf collecting dust.

This is THE BIBLE. This is the gold standard for the exposition of the TCP/IP protocol stack. Every other TCP/IP protocol book must be measured by the yardstick of this book. This is simply the most comprehensive book ever written on the TCP/IP protocol stack. It's crystal clear and utterly lucid. Stevens tome leads the reader logically, methodically and effortlessly through all of the layers of the TCP/IP protocol stack: the Link Layer (ethernet frames), IP layer, Transport Layer etc. All nuances of TCP/IP are discussed: Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), RARP, ICMP, IGMP, User Datagram Protocol, Transmission Control Protocol etc. In particular, the 135 page exposition of the transmission control protocol is a masterstroke. Application level protocols such as DNS, NFS, FTP, SMTP are discussed at length. TCP/IP Illustrated is Unix-centric. Given that the roots of TCP/IP are in Unix, every serious appreciation of the protocol requires at least a basic understanding of Unix philosophy. This book is a masterpiece of technical writing in Computer Science. Do not be mislead by the one negative review of this book on the spurious grounds that it is outdated. The TCP/IP protocol has not changed since the publication of this book in 1994. I have two copies of this book and will probably buy a third copy. I very, very highly recommend TCP/IP Illustrated Volume I.

This is THE BIBLE. This is the most comprehensive book on the tcp/ip protocol. It's crystal clear and utterly lucid. A masterpiece of technical writing. Very, very highly recommended.

It is a very good book for understanding TCP/IP protocol suite. It has lots of tools explained in detail to explore the different protocols on unix/linux based systems. Most of the protocols are presented well. It is a must have book for learning networking concepts. I highly recommend this book.

Either if you're a pro or a student, this book is a MUST-HAVE. "Buy it NOW, don't waste more time" is the best advice I could give to you.

This book has very well detailed TCP/IP information, unfortunately some of the information is outdated. The book is easy to follow, and would make an even better learning tool if updated. I bought the book since it was required reading for a class, but I would opt out for a younger publishing on this topic if I had a choice.

This is a good book that covers all the fundamentals of TCP/IP networking. Good illustrations. Seperate chapters for each common application protocols.

This book is an excellent reference or source to really learn some of the innards of TCP/IP. Very good diagrams and everthing is explained in an easy to understand way. I would recommend some basic to intermediate knowledge of network before picking this up.

Well written and illustrated. Very comprehensive. After reading several books on the subject, I find this one to have easily remembered formulas for everything TCP/IP. A must for the networking professional and the up and coming professional as well.

I've taken several university-level courses in Network design and security and I have to say that this book, which is a very easy read, surpassed everything that I'd learned in my classes. If you want to work in the Networking industry, this book is a must-have.

"TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1 - The Protocols" by Richard Stevens is probably THE book which I reference most often of any I.T. book I have. I believe I am on my third or fourth dog-eared copy (either the book becomes too worn out from overuse or, I think, a mischievous co-worker permanently borrowed one copy). Any book where I have probably spent over $200 in buying, and rebuying must be worth it - and "TCP/IP Illustrated" is worth the money!

I think you can get an idea of how great the book is from other reviews here. Rather than repeat the same raves, allow me to mention that it still amazes me, the amount of NEW books that are published that either cites, gives thanks or credits this book - Network Intrusion Detection, 3rd edition; The TAO of Network Security Monitoring; and Gray Hat Hacking are just three recent books which all mention "TCP/IP Illustrated" in their index.

"TCP/IP Illustrated" is an excellent guide for any network or systems admin. Is the material presented in this book a little dated? - Yes. Can you probably find the same material on the web? - Yes. Do you want the ONE book where you can find your TCP/IP answers? - YES! You won't be disappointed with "TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1".

I give this book 5 pings out of 5:
!!!!!

Definitely my favorite book on TCP/IP. Doesn't nmatter if it's somehow out of date, if you need to *understand* TCP/IP you need to go thru this book.Illustrations and clear explanations are a strong point of the book.
And also a lot of references to CLI both for *nix and Windows based systems.
Also useful for networking troubleshooting and TCP optimizing.
If you need a book on TCP/IP this is what you want to buy.

Definitely my favorite book on TCP/IP. Doesn't nmatter if it's somehow out of date, if you need to *understand* TCP/IP you need to go thru this book.Illustrations and clear explanations are a strong point of the book.
And also a lot of references to CLI both for *nix and Windows based systems.
Also useful for networking troubleshooting and TCP optimizing.
If you need a book on TCP/IP this is what you want to buy.

Want to really understand TCP/IP, this is the best text. Hands down.

I cannot fathom a guess as to how many times the books in this series have saved my in project work over the years. The only drawback with this series is that some publisher should endeavor to keep them up to date. Serious Unix system programmers must have copies of the complete series.

This is one of those books that despite the old age (this has been written 10 years ago) can still be considered up-to-date.

For those who want to learn how tcp/ip based networks work or to get more involved with the details this book is a must have in your shelf.

There are 64 reviews before this one. Average user review is 5 stars. So, whatever I write here is going to have a small influence on your judgment. Still I will show my presents in this world. I say this book is excellent. Don't waste time trying to find any better book about TCT/IP. Read this book. You'll be happy you did it.

You can always tell which reference books were worth the money... they get worn out (the ones you waste your money on still look brand new years later). Well, I've worn two of these books out completely and just bought my third. I'd say that indicates I'm using them a LOT.

It is true that the book does not cover some new topics such as IPv6, but for a good understanding of the basic TCP/IP protocols with lots of pictures to explain the text, you can't find a better book than this. It is truly outstanding!

As the review title suggests, this book should be in every IT professionals library.

This book is the holy bible for network protocols. It offers the best knowledge I've ever encountered in books within the same topics. Highly recommended !

I love this book. Full of information, very clear and easy to understand.Great reference.

How can you tell that "TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1 - The Protocols" by Richard Stevens is the definitive book on TCP/IP? Even after 10 years, this book, having been written in 1994, is still considered to be one of the top, if not the top, rated books on TCP/IP. Not only does this book deserve credit, but his companion book - "TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2 - The Implementation", which came out in 1995, is also highly favored. If you go to your friendly neighborhood bookstore, you are most likely to find this book on the shelf in the networking section.

Despite its early publication, and its lack of information on IPV6, it is very relevant today. I was once trying to find out why my protocol analyzer was always showing PSH and I was curious as to why it was used. In my other TCP/IP books, there was only about a line or two on the subject, whereas in "TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2- The Implementation", there were a couple of pages of information to peruse. Similarly with the RST flag, the information was detailed regarding its use and easy to follow.

All the protocols are given a very thorough treatise TCP, IP, UDP, ARP, ICMP, FTP, SMTP, Telnet and Rlogon are among the protocols that are illustrated in great detail. All the required information that is relevant to know about these protocols is provided. The examples are first rate and easy to follow and they are in abundance. Do you want to know how keepalives work? How about an example, complete with instructions, on how to simulate a crash and the tcpdump output you can expect to see. There are 2 other examples, just in case you missed the point!

He is obviously a unix afficionado, having written a very popular - "Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment". Even if you are not a Unix user, and I am not one myself, his use of unix tools for the examples are very easy to follow and easily translate to common windows networking tools. He takes great pains to make sure you understand his examples, which I find refreshing.

Believe me it's everything you have ever wanted to know about TCP/IP and then some. If I had to have only one book on the subject, this would be it. Regardless of the level of networking you find yourself at, you should get more than your times worth of information out of this book.

I've been trying to unearth the details of exactly what TCP/IP is and is not for quite some time - although I've been using it both as a consumer and as a programmer for years, all of the pieces never quite *clicked* until I found this book. I knew, for example, that my PC somehow obtained an IP address using something called "DHCP" and that my browser somehow translated "www.amazon.com" into an IP address using something called "DNS" - I knew that there was a thing called "UDP" that was parallel to "TCP", but I didn't know how they were related... in short, I knew the how, but not the why. This book covers, in minute detail, exactly what's going on - it stops short of describing how many electrons flow in and out of your ethernet card during a typical TCP/IP session, but that's about the last level of detail you could hope for. And, amazingly enough - it's a good read! I actually found myself staying up late just to "finish this chapter", because the author's writing style is so engaging.

The only bad thing I can say about this book is it is a bit outdated. I however would not recommend ANY book over this one. It's THE book for learning the tcp/ip protocol suite. I think I've read this book at least 3 times and I'm probably due in for a 4th time. I rank this as my favorite computer book. So really I give it 10 stars out of 5 ;)

if you have any intention of getting into any aspect of
networking/systems, then this book is a must read. if you
already work in networking and you have not read this book
twice, then you should take a leave-of-absence and READ IT.
the writing is easy to follow, descriptive, and as the title
says, illustrated. stevens shows you, using common unix tools,
what is going on, at the protocol level. even if you aren't a
unix user (why not???), the explanations are easily applied
using windows-based tools.
reading this book should be part of every basic (and advanced)
course in networking/security/systems/etc.

This book caused quite a stir when it first came out. It had unprecedent detail, clarity and insight. It is a good book, however like most protocol books you often have to search hard to find the bits that are relevant when using it as reference. This is particular issue as this book only covers part of the story -- as there are a series of these books. By the way, there is another series of books that preceeds these that covered TCP/IP in great detail, including protocol code -- probably World Wide Web though. There may be other newer books available now that are as good or better. Also, the Internet related protocols continue to evolve so books in this domain tend to become a little dated after a couple of years. It is not that they become invalid, it is more that they become increasingly less complete.

Highlights:

*) Very clear and precise
*) source code in book very nicely explained.

Drawbacks:

*) Sometimes very heavy treatment (at least on my poor brain!)
*) Not a very portable reference (considering there are 2 more volumes). Is there a CD version ;-) ??

I initially bought this book to understand how the tcp/ip stack was implemented in linux.
Being a programmer mainly doing business related software, I initially found understanding this a little daunting to go through . After a little effort and looking at the source, i found this book enlightening!

I found it extremely useful comparing code and concepts in the book with the actual tcp/ip source (FreeBSD and Linux). I am still going through 3 volumes of the book.

A very good text book if you want to dig into the core of tcp/ip.

TCP/IP is the most fundamental protocol that drives the whole of the internet. A deep understanding of them is necessary for any wannabe network administrator/programmer/analyst etc.

Richard Stevens TCP/IP illustrated is one of the best books you can ever buy to understand not only TCP/IP but also other fundamental protocols like ARP, DHCP, SMTP etc. The word 'Illustrated' is significant, you actually see the protocols in action throughout this book. There are more pages devoted to examples rather than concepts, which is actually an excellent way to relate to the concepts.

Richard Stevens doesnt just write something, and assume you understood him and believed him in blind faith. He actually shows you what you write and helps you become more analytical in the workings of the internet.

This book is a bit old though, and with Richard Stevens dead, we might not see a revival of this book. It only covers TCP modification till Tahoe and Reno but chapter 24 gives you a more or less good idea about what the future will be like (in which we actually are, by the timeline of this book.)

Overall, if you want to not only learn networks, but feel them, then buy this book.

This book, although dated, explains the protocols clearly with a good number of examples and diagrams. Exercises further enhance the reader's understanding of TCP/IP. This reviewer started his computer networking career using this book as a guide. Together with a PC running Linux or FreeBSD, one can learn from the book a great deal and in depth. It is sad that W. Richard Stevens passed away; hopefully, someone would be able to update this book in the spirit as it was originally made.

What work you ask?

The monotony of trudging through RFC-laden arcania. Unless you're implementing/maintaining a TCP/IP stack, the coverage is outstanding.

Even though this book was published in 1994, it still serves as a useful reference and learning tool for the TCP/IP protocol. There are of course changes and additions that have been made to TCP/IP over the last 7 years such as IPv6, but one can still refer to this book as a good source of information about the dynamics of TCP/IP. There are exercises at the end of each chapter, so it can, and has been used as an effective textbook.

In chapter 1, the author gives a brief overview of protocol layering, Internet addressing, and the domain name system. The encapsulation mechanisms for TCP and UDP are outlined as well as a discussion of the different implementations of TCP/IP. The Vegas implementation is not discussed since it was invented long after the date of publication of this book. Ethernet and the encapsulation provided by IEEE, SLIP, and PPP is discussed in the next chapter on the link layer, along with the loopback interface and MTU. Estimates are given of serial line throughput, setting the stage for later timing calculations.

The IP protocol is the subject of chapter 3, the author stressing first the connectionless and unreliable nature of IP packet transfer. The IP datagram format is given in discussed, along with a detailed discussion of subnet addressing and subnet masks. The discussion of IP given here is of course very out of date with the advent of IPv6.

Chapter 4 is an overview of ARP, and the author illustrates it effectively using an example of an FTP transfer and Telnet. This is followed by a treatment of RARP in the next chapter, with the limitations of this protocol briefly discussed. Although ARP is incorporated in all current implementations of TCP/IP (with the exception of IPv6), not all of these include RARP.

The ICMP error handling protocol is discussed in the next chapter, with all the message types listed, and brief discussions given of timestamp and address mask requests. This is followed naturally by a discussion of the Ping program in chapter 7, which uses ICMP echo request and reply messages.

The traceroute program, which finds which path IP packets follow from one to the other, is discussed in Chapter 8. An explicit example is given of how to use traceroute. Then in the next chapter, IP routing is discussed, along with an explicit example of a routing table. Again, the discussion is out-of-date, since in IPv6, the router discovery is replaced by a mandatory router solicitation and advertisement mechanism.

Dynamic routing protocols are the subject of the next chapter, wherein the author discusses RIP, OSPF, BGP, and CIDR. The newer ones, such as IGRP, EIGRP, and MPLS, are of course not treated.

UDP is then discussed in the next chapter, with examples given and IP fragmentation discussed, along with a brief overview of how UDP and ARP interact. This is followed in Chapter 12 by a discussion of broadcasting and multicasting, and the author outlines briefly the problems that rise when attempting to broadcast through routers. Then in the next chapter, the ICMP mechanism for multicasting is discussed. Here again the treatment is dated, since in IPv6 IGMP is replaced by multicast listener discovery messages and there are no broadcast addressing in IPv6.

The DNS database is discussed in the next chapter, with emphasis on how resolvers communicate with name servers using TCP/IP. The discussion is limited to A resource records, which is replaced in IPv6 with AAAA or A6 resource records. I did not read the next two chapters on TFTP and BOOTP so I will omit any commentary.

It is in the next chapter that the basics of TCP begin to be discussed, with the details of the TCP header given. The dynamics of the TCP connection is then treated in chapter 18, with a complete TCP state transition diagram given. The discussion is very helpful to those who need a thorough understanding of the connection steps in TCP. This is followed by a treatment of the Nagle algorithm and delayed ACKs in chapter 19. The exercises in this chapter need to be worked to appreciate the discussion.

The following chapter overviews how TCP sliding windows work, and how window sizing is done. Slow start, the bandwidth-delay product, and the urgent mode are all treated in great detail. The mathematical considerations behind TCP timeout and retransmission are given in chapter 21, along with a discussion of the congestion avoidance algorithm and the fast retransmit and fast recovery algorithms. Then in chapter 22, the TCP persist timer, used to prevent transmission deadlock and the silly window syndrome, is discussed in detail. The ability of TCP to implement a keepalive timer is discussed in the next chapter. Since it is out of date, I did not read the next chapter on the future of TCP.

The SNMP network management protocol is outlined in Chapter 25, with definitions of MIB and an overview of SNMP traps. These are very important concepts given the enormous importance of network management currently. There are currently several vendors that supply packages for polling, reporting, and forecasting network behavior that are based partially on SNMP and MIBs.

Telnet and Rlogin, which are still used extensively in modern networks, are discussed in the next chapter. After reading this chapter, the reader will have a thorough understanding of how these protocols work, which is also true of the next chapter that covers the FTP protocol, and the SMTP protocol, which is covered in chapter 28. I did not read the last two chapters of the book so I will omit any commentary.

The author has done a good job here of relating to the reader the structure and dynamics of TCP/IP based on what was known at the time. In view of the fact that IPv4 is still alive and well, and given that TCP implementations have only been slightly modified since 1994, one can still read this book profitably.

The more I read about TCP/IP (or any technical subject) the more it becomes clear that what may be good for one student may not be good for another. Some will really like this book. Others will really hate it. If you have already had the 10,000 ft. view of the TCP/IP protocol suite, and hunger for the nut-and-bolts, then this book is for you. It goes into excrutiating detail about what is happening during communication exchanges, maps out all the fields in various headers, and shows you just what happens - even the extraneous stuff - when some common commands are executed.

I gave it four stars because I have not seen any other text go into this kind of detail. For a companion text, I would recommend "Internetworking with TCP/IP Vol. I" (Comer), or "Internet Core Protocols: the Definitive Guide" (Hall).

The book does a great job in illustrating how different layers of TCP/IP protocol work together. Great read and I will also buy his other books (Advanced UNIX Programing, Advanced UNIX network programming tec.) to gain deeper understanding at the code level.

Excellent for network administrators, programmers, and system administrators alike. Absolutely superb description from the ground up of what actually happens on IP networks. After reading this book, whenever you have a network problem, your first inclination will be to reach for a sniffer...:-)

Its said that a well designed product is one that is not only of immediate benefit to the user, but also one that grows in sophistication with the user, to a point where its functionality evolves over time to become a part of the user.

I bought my first copy of this book years ago. I forget how many copies I've had over the years. I've bought copies for countless young protocol engineers and support fellows.

I crack this baby open almost weekly.

Despite being slightly dated (1994) Stevens' book is perhaps the most useful and informative available on this topic. Stevens has a vast knowledge of TCP/IP protocols and continually drops gems of useful info throughout the book (ex. common ephemeral port ranges). Particularly useful are his discussion of MTU relating to ethernet, ins and outs of subnet masks, different kinds of ICMP, structure DNS and SMTP. Stevens does get a bit long-winded in his discussion of TCP timing and how to reduce congestion in different environments. Nonetheless, this is an exceptional book that will be useful for many years to come.

I am responsible for a 50+ person intrusion detection mission, and I recommend this book to analysts after 6-12 months on the job. I do this because the serious folks have lasted that long, and they receive the most benefit from definitive works like Richard's wonderful volume. In the summer of 1999, this book brought my knowledge of TCP/IP from the memorization and recognition stages to the comprehension and application stages. While some material is far too deep in the weeds (SNMP, for example), the vast majority of the book caters to any intermediate student of TCP/IP and/or network based intrusion detection. I was lucky enough to exchange emails with Richard before he died on 1 Sep 99, and I grieved the loss to his family and to the Internet community. This book and his other volumes remain as testaments to his educational ability.

A comprehensive clearly written reference and tutorial. This is the best book on TCP/IP.

Sometimes there can be subtle bugs in programming TCP/IP that require a greater knowledge of its protocol. This book and its companion volumes will give you the knowledge you need.

As an expert on middleware, I've found this book to be indispensible.

No other book takes such a comprehensive look into the TCP/IP protocol stack. This was the first book out of four that I read, and I felt like an expert after reading just this one!

The best work I've seen detailing the innards of TCP/IP. If you have to or want to know what's going on inside the protocol stack, read this book.

router

If you don't understand the TCP/IP protocol suite with this book, forget it it. Find something else to do with your life. This book is a must. Even if you are an experienced networker, you will love it. The very-hard-to-please people, should ckeck out Vol.2.

This book helped me to understand all about TCP/IP that I needed to know. I think it's a good book for anyone wanting to learn the basics on computer networks. It also provides a look into the inner workings of TCP/IP that you wouldn't otherwise see.

The covereage is comprehensive and in great detail, the organization of the material flows in a logical manner. Stevens needs to put out a new edition soon to reflect recent enhancements to the protocols (notably IPv6 and upgrades to TCP like larger window sizes (RFC 1323) which are quickly glossed over in this edtion). Also, it's kind of aggravating that none of the code would compile on my system even though Stevens supposedly tested it in my environment. And even if I could have compiled the code, I would still need superuser priveleges to run traceroute and the other programs - it would be nice to provide utilities that an average user could run. If you can get past these nits, this book really is an excellent reference on TCP/IP and applications. Another excellent book which I recommend highly is "Networking UNIX" by Douba for a more top level approach to this material.

A must-have for Internet/intranet developers, and anyone trying to get a handle on exactly what is going on with almost any protocol. This is the definitive guide to understanding the protocols down to their basest level.

The book covers all aspects of Networking with TCP/IP in a very simple and thorough manner. Most of the TCP/IP protocols are covered and I have come to rely more & more on the book for all my networking needs

Stevens has achieved something that I was searching for; An intense, simple and essential Illustration of TCP/IP. I am currently writing a FireWall and this book was the first step I had to take into this networking world. I still use it as my primary reference book.

I have seldom seen such a good book about a "computer-subject""

It deals with all part of TCP/IP; not only it describes the protocols, it also mentions what's the protocol about!
It is readable from side to side, or by topic, and even usable as reference.

Lot of examples, with a high grade of real-live.(almost) All examples are given on the same network, with makes them (i) familiar; you only once have to "study" the example-network, and (ii) it is possible to compare examples.
Great Job, great book