"A New TCP/IP Classic" -- Slashdot, December 14, 2005
"A rocking, well-organized, profusely illustrated book . . . Probably the best new introduction and reference book around." -- NetPerformance.com, June 12, 2006
"It's informative and easy to read, even when discussing rather nasty protocols." -- ;login:, April 2006
"Nicely organized, from an introduction to networking through administration and troubleshooting, the book clearly explains each topic." -- Library Journal, January 15, 2006
"The TCP/IP Guide is great for anyone and everyone . . . it can act both as a reference guide and a textbook." -- Linux Security, April 6, 2006
"The most comprehensive guide to TCP/IP protocols we have ever come across . . . [and] the most readable . . . we highly recommend it." -- Network World, November 28, 2005
"This book is the Real Deal . . . you will appreciate the mastery of Kozierok's achievement." -- WatchGuard Wire
"This is a really well-done book, . . . easy-to-digest information about TCP/IP." -- IBM’s DeveloperWorks, January 18, 2006
"Well-organized, well-illustrated, and has a conversational tone that makes it easy to read and learn even for networking novices." -- Windows Networking, May 10, 2006
Charles is a very good teacher. Explanations are very down-to-earth, so anyone can understand the protocols. Be warned that the pictures are not in color, but his web site and PDF do show them in color. That becomes crucial for some of the more complicated diagrams. My other complaint is that it's a bit long-winded at time due to the included jokes - I think 1600 pages is enough that adding jokes is unnecessary
This text offers a well-guided clear understanding of TCP/IP and its design motivations. The nature of the text is best suited to readers with little or no networking background, and who actually want to understand TCP/IP (as opposed to just know about it). The author makes a point to explain why the designers of the protocols did things the way they did, the histories behind decisions and developments, the advantages and disadvantages of certain features and how everything fits together. These explanations obviously lengthen the text, but it is perfect if you are committed to understanding TCP/IP properly. The author's style is quite direct, easy to read, and makes sense.
It's a very comprehensive text--some might argue too comprehensive! This isn't a how-to guide and doesn't claim to be. Some of the drier parts can get dry, but when describing a packet format you can't really avoid that, and you can always skip those parts (though I found persevering through them helped my understanding too). I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to understand the protocols of the Internet.
The TCP/IP set by Comer + TCP/IP Illustrated set by Richard Stevens + The TCP/IP Guide by Charles M. Kozierok ] and are the only books about TCP/IP stack that are worth reading.
Comer is a bit dryer than Stevens
Stevens has excellent examples
Kozierok has more details and drawing / pictures
"The TCP/IP Guide" has also a web-site, however the site contains only ~50-60% of the books
All the above books will provide everything you need to know
Code impementation is provided by Comer and Stevens
Next step would be books like "Unix Network Programming" by Stevens, "Understanding Linux Network Internals" by Benvenuti,
"The Linux Programming Interface: A Linux and UNIX System Programming..." by Kerrisk, etc etc etc
ould agree with many of the positive reviews here.
It is hard to believe that just one person wrote this book. Equally amazing is how good it is. It is getting a bit old and some things are beginning to move on, but to understand IPv6, you need a good grasp of IPv4. Both are covered beautifully in a manner designed to teach not confuse or merely impress other academic types. There are detailed diagrams and line by line full explanations on every topic and nothing nor any detail is skipped. From binary transfer, to packet encoding, everything imaginable is covered for the OSI reference model, in terms that just about anyone can understand. Seriously impressive.
Want to understand networking? Much of the information in this book is a must. As a reference book, it is outstanding. At 1500+ pages it doesn't miss much, if anything, although I must confess to only having read line by line about a third of it in total, roughly 500 pages.
I'm biased as my hobby and professional work is IT. I literally have multiples of hundreds of tech books, in paper and Ebooks. For me, this book is a work of fine art.
This is the most comprehensive and detailed treatment of TCP/IP you'll ever have the pleasure (or displeasure) to read. Obviously, I did not read the entire book; to be honest I read only about a third, and I'm already blown away by the complexity of TCP/IP. Also, by reading I do not mean understanding - this will come only after few shots of cognac and certain amount of banging your head on your keyboard while Wiresharking. Also, I would not recommend trying to read this from cover-to-cover; in my opinion it's simply impossible, but we know that at least one person did it. Chapeau-bas to the author for writing such a monster (in a positive sense).
Many years ago I was looking for something to update what I had first learned from TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol 1 by Richard Stevens. Among many other books, I bought this one directly from the author online.
While this is a massive tome, I find it is much less useful than Stevens mainly because it's tough to wade through the esoterica. Essentially, it's tough to see the forest for the trees.
I troubleshoot IT (and especially intermittent response time) problems for a living and the big gun in my troubleshooting arsenal is packet analysis. I've been doing packet analysis since the mid-80s starting with IBM protocols such as SNA/SDLC, moving on to DECNet, IPX/SPX, IPv4 and finally IPv6. I routinely analyze trace sets between 10GB and 100GB in size and am noted for discovering issues that have escaped lesser experienced engineers, so I believe I'm modestly entitled to say I'm pretty adept at this material.
But... whenever I have any question about protocols, I first reach for Stevens unless my question revolves around something not covered in Stevens such as DHCP, IPv6, the new TCP stacks, etc. At that point I might pick up this book but usually reluctantly so.
Stevens did a wonderful job painting a coherent picture of how the protocols work. I personally don't find that coherence in this book. Now that there is a second edition of TCP/IP Illustrated that covers (masterfully I might add) all the things missing from the first edition I just can't see reaching for this book any more. I don't even keep the soft copy on my laptop any more.
I hate to "dis" what was obviously a monumental work effort but I personally would recommend TCP/IP Illustrated (2ND EDITION!!!) over this book any day of the week...
Sorry to say but this book is good for some School or college going bloke who is looking to start to gain some knowledge in Networking.
But for someone who wishes to be a good Networking professional as a developer/Tester in L4-L7 industry, this book does not even satisfy 1/1000 of the requirements.
For example: In the initial chapters I was looking to understand ENDIAN ness, big endian and little endian - the most fundamental topic..But I did not find in this book.
Then I was looking to understand Presentation layer of OSI , here all I could see was some theoritical discussion but NO PRACTICAL examples like Gunzip, XML, ASN etc.
Then I was looked at IP Layer, I wanted to know how the IP Layer REASSEMBLES fragments. He has not explained that - the most basic functionality of IP Layer.
Then for TCP layer - He has not mentioned about URGENT Pointer or use of Urgent pointer for practical applications. Neither has he explained how TCP Behaves for Bulk data and interactive data. Then he has skipped detailed explanation about Congestion avoidance algorithm .
TCP Window Flow control I needed detailed understanding but he has not explained it.
For Layer 7 - He has not explained the SSL protocol which is the best security protocol in use in industry.
What about the SOCKET layer?. He has not talked about Socket functionality at all.
Overall, this book is good for someone starting out in Networking understanding but like I said before this is not even 1/100 of the depth of networking and the author has barely scratched the surface.
Product Details :
Hardcover: 1616 pages
Publisher: No Starch Press; 1 edition (October 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 159327047X
ISBN-13: 978-1593270476
Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 2.3 x 9.1 inches
More Details about The TCP/IP Guide: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Internet Protocols Reference 1st edition
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