Customer Reviews

TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

Another masterpiece by the late Richard Stevens. This book is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand what goes on at the protocol level whenever any kind of interaction happens on the internet. Take any application level protocol - FreeNet, P2P, RTP, and you will understand its underpinnings thoroughly after having read this book. If you find the content a bit overwhelming, make sure you read Tanenbaum's "Computer Networks" before diving into this book.

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.

If you're into learning the underlying concepts of some of the most used protocols (ip, icmp, udp, and all those encapsulated in the aforementioned ones), there's no way around it! I've bought this book as soon as a friend of mine told me the following, which I'll quote "If you want to become a ninja in TCP/IP, you'll likely need to have this book at hand."; I found the book quite annoying in the beginning, due to the simple fact that I had recently read the book "O'reilly: TCP/IP Network Administration". I've dropped reading this one for like 2 months, and when I've started reading it back, It all went so utterly better. The book covers a lot of protocols, one of which I found very useful was DNS, because the available RFC's were generally not-so-easy(tm) to follow and understand; and after reading the chapter on DNS, It all turned to be much more simple than I found it be when reading the relevant RFC's. The book is a definitive guide for anyone, and should be used as such, for coverage and implementation you should read the book entitled "UNIX Network Programming" by the same author, Mr. W. Stevens (which unfortunately has passed away)

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.