Practical TCP/IP

Subtitle: Designing, using, and troubleshooting TCP/IP networks on Linux and Windows
Author: Niall Mansfield

Practical TCP/IP is the only book you need to ensure that your networks work. It's a hands-on book based on years of practical experience. As well as explaining the principles of networking and TCP/IP protocols, it shows you how to use them too. Covering both Linux and Windows, Practical TCP/IP is applicable to just about any network.

This book has a unique modular approach that facilitates in-depth and easy learning. The many detailed appendices make this a long-term reference book you cannot be without.

Resources

Skills you will learn:

Tells you how to build a network. Unusually, the book also explains not just how to do things on your network, but why, and how the various components interact.
Starts with a simple two-machine network and goes onto a full network connected to the Internet with a firewall and internal routers, and DNS and e-mail servers.
Explains the free software tools you need to diagnose problems and to understand how your network is operating.
Assumes that things will go wrong -- nothing ever works first time! Error messages are explained and solutions provided for problems you'll meet.
Includes practical troubleshooting and diagnostic techniques that you can apply just about everywhere, enabling you to solve problems in your own network and in systems configured by others.
Ties together the various networking components so that the network is viewed as a whole, not just disjointed pieces.
Explains the why as well as the how to of network configuration.

After reading this book you end up with a working network and you understand what is happening at a detailed level. You'll be able to diagnose and fix problems and identify bugs in the software you are using. This book will appeal to both beginners and experienced TCP/IP practitioners.

Endorsements & Reviews

This book has been touted as the 21st-century upgrade to the classic TCP/IP Illustrated (by Richard W. Stevens), a series which has held a prominent place on the shelves of many a network administrator for the last decade. These are big boots to fill, but Practical TCP/IP does an impressive job.

You won't find a better TCP/IP book!

Covers TCP/IP and networking in general tremendously. The beginning of each chapter can be read by a newbie/undergraduate very easily, and by the ends of chapters you are treated to rocket science.

Accuracy is superb - written by someone obviously knowledgable in the subject, and able to communicate this knowledge extremely effectively.

This is an excellent book for taking your computer networking career from mediocre to top notch.