The subject of networking including the various standards, conventions, and protocols and how those are seen and implemented on various operating systems on clients, routers, servers is vast. The approach of this book, like many, is to describe the format of the various layers of the DoD or OSI network models. The author uses the output of a network sniffer to illustrate some of the protocols at the various levels. It is a plus of this book that more detail is given for some of the protocols than is normally seen in this level of book.



Not all of the protocols are described as well as others. For example, the section on the ICMP protocol is really botched by sniffer frames of ARP being shown. That is an inexplicable mistake by the publisher. Twenty percent of the book is devoted to routing and it does get tedious. The section on HTTP is not done well.



But details of protocols is a small part of the network story. What is missing is the glue that holds it all together. What processes or services on the various computers are servicing these protocols? How are they triggered? What is the flow among the layers and protocols for, say, running an E-Mail client. The reader is pretty much left in the dark on that question. It does seem that the author has taken several of the Internet Authority's RFC's (Requests for Comment), standards for the Internet, and put them in readable form, which is why the book has a disconnected feel. All in all, the book adds to information about networking with the TCP/IP suite. The four-star rating is probably generous. It does seem that many books are needed to grasp this subject. And writing software has not even been mentioned.

The subject of networking including the various standards, conventions, and protocols and how those are seen and implemented on various operating systems on clients, routers, servers is vast. The approach of this book, like many, is to describe the format of the various layers of the DoD or OSI network models. The author uses the output of a network sniffer to illustrate some of the protocols at the various levels. It is a plus of this book that more detail is given for some of the protocols than is normally seen in this level of book.

Not all of the protocols are described as well as others. For example, the section on the ICMP protocol is really botched by sniffer frames of ARP being shown. That is an inexplicable mistake by the publisher. Twenty percent of the book is devoted to routing and it does get tedious. The section on HTTP is not done well.

But details of protocols is a small part of the network story. What is missing is the glue that holds it all together. What processes or services on the various computers are servicing these protocols? How are they triggered? What is the flow among the layers and protocols for, say, running an E-Mail client. The reader is pretty much left in the dark on that question. It does seem that the author has taken several of the Internet Authority's RFC's (Requests for Comment), standards for the Internet, and put them in readable form, which is why the book has a disconnected feel. All in all, the book adds to information about networking with the TCP/IP suite. The four-star rating is probably generous. It does seem that many books are needed to grasp this subject. And writing software has not even been mentioned.