Networking Linux: A Practical Guide to TCP/IP

Book Preface

These reviewers contributed their considerable hands-on expertise to the entire development process for Networking Linux: A Practical Guide to TCP/IP. As the book was being written, these dedicated professionals reviewed all the material for technical content, organization, and flow. Their feedback was critical to ensuring that Networking Linux: A Practical Guide to TCP/IP fits our readers’ need for the highest quality technical information.

Ivan McDonagh been programming for almost 20 years and is entirely self taught. He first fell in love with computers at school and learned to program in BASIC using punch cards. Ivan subsequently had many opportunities to work in real-time using both PDP and VAX mini-computers, and his interest in UNIX-like operating systems has remained since that time.

Ivan’s interest in programming, particularly systems programming, lead inevitably to GNU/Linux about 4 years ago and he has avidly used, programmed and promoted GNU/Linux at every opportunity since then. Ivan currently works full-time as a sales-man in the tobacco industry and part-time as a Linux books technical reviewer.

Ivan currently uses the Debian/GNU Linux distribution and has used Red Hat and Caldera, among others. Recently the Linux from Scratch (www.linuxfromscratch.org) idea caught Ivan’s attention and he will be migrating to that as soon as possible.

Organization of this Book

This book is divided into three parts, with an initial chapter (Chapter 1) that is not included in the parts. Chapter 1, “Prelude to a Practical Guide,” gives an overview of the terminology and technology used through the rest of the book. Included in the appendixes are some important RFCs. While these documents are available on the ‘Net, having them bound with this book, and indexed too, should be a real win.

Part I of this book, “The Protocols,” provides a layer-by-layer look at the protocols. It reviews the use of these protocols, details the structure of the packets that make them up, and explains how they interoperate to make networks work.

Part II, “Using the Protocols Effectively,” covers network administration from a hands-on point of view. Most of the emphasis is on troubleshooting, with a chapter detailing a problem-solving pattern, and another giving case studies of network problems. This part also includes a chapter covering network baselining.

Part III, “Tools for Your Toolkit,” provides an introduction to a number of free tools that will make your networking life easier. These introductions cover the installation and use of tools for network troubleshooting, network monitoring, and network security.