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Internet Core Protocols : The Definitive Guide
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Author: Eric A. Hall
List Price: $39.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 1565925726
Publisher: O'Reilly (15 March, 2000)
Edition: Paperback
Sales Rank: 14,245
Average Customer Rating: 4.06 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 5 out of 5
Well done
The best thing about this book, which covers protocols like TCP and IP in detail, is that the discussion is from the ground-up, not from the top-down. I know what TCP/IP does for me at an application level, but I didn't know how TCP, or IP, or any of the other covered protocols, worked under the covers. Now I feel like I have a much better understanding of the details, which means I have a better understanding of a lot of things that are built on top of these protocols, as well as of system administration type tasks. Even the page after page of 'this bit field does this' text, which in most books would be rarely visited reference material, is decent, because individual reference sections contain real-world 'this means that' information. I would have liked a bit more discussion of Internet naming, IP address details, and so on, but I can find that information elsewhere.
Rating: 2 out of 5
good book but too much repeated stuff
Very good presentation and description of core protocols (ip, icmp, igmp udp/tcp, arp) and at the right in-depth level I believe (if you want to get more in-depth, the rfc are there for that).
Anyway the book could be made much better just removing stuff since it contains way too much duplicated info. First there are whole paragraphs repeated exactly the same just a few pages away. I think this can get quite offensive (do you think I'm so dumb that I don't remember?).
And then there are the screenshots which are not very appropriate here since this is not an application review. A well formatted packet decode a'la tcpdump/snoop would be much better since screenshots display lots of useless stuff (menus, toolbars, etc) and for big packets a single screenshot can't fit the whole thing so you have to include two or more of them introducing discontinuities.
Furthermore screenshots are uselessly duplicated throughout the book. For example a simple ip header contains jsut 12 fields so a single screenshot can fit them all, anyway to describe these fields, the same screenshot is duplicated 14 times, from page 59 to page 77, and then a few more times. This happens for all the protocols and each screenshot takes about 66% of a page, so this is a real waste of paper! Often it gets really ridiculous when you have the same screenshot on 2 facing pages so you don't even have to slightly rotate your eyes to find them ;-)
Rating: 4 out of 5
A good book..
This book is good for learning basic knoweledge of internet core protocols, definately not for beginners who don't know what protocols are all about. Sometimes gets a little bit complicated with all the 'sasquaches' etc. (You'll know what i mean if you get and read it..) Even though i liked reading the book i give it 4. (Well ok, maybe 4.5)
P.S.
If you are into protocols, this is definately the book you should read!
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