Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Fernando Rodriguez]

On Friday, September 04, 2015 9:53:51 AM Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Sep 2015 22:47:45 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> 
> > The absolute best network RFCs are the ones about coffeepot over HTTP,
> > and IP by carrier pigoen (or is it Avain IP? something like that)
> 
> There's one about matter transfer by email attachments too.
> 
> 
> 

The best IMO is RFC 2795 - The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite.

-- 
Fernando Rodriguez

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Neil Bothwick]

On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 06:26:52 -0400, Fernando Rodriguez wrote:

> The best IMO is RFC 2795 - The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite.

I believe that is now known as "Facebook" :)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"Self-explanatory": technospeak for "Incomprehensible & undocumented"


pgpS_1mZnUi5p.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Francisco Ares]

2015-09-03 3:28 GMT-03:00 Mihamina Rakotomandimby <
mihamina.rakotomandi...@rktmb.org>:

> In order to complete other answers, I woul like to point out a test
> environment that would be nice:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marionnet
>
>
>

Thanks, Mihamina, I've being looking to Marionet, and it looks great!
Probably in a few months of study, it will be a good way to play around
with bits and bytes.

Best Regards,
Francisco

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Fernando Rodriguez]

On Friday, September 04, 2015 11:32:39 AM Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Sep 2015 06:26:52 -0400, Fernando Rodriguez wrote:
> 
> > The best IMO is RFC 2795 - The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite.
> 
> I believe that is now known as "Facebook" :)

That's the reference implementation.
It turned out monkeys are not very fond of typing but they love making videos, 
so some PayPal guys improved the protocol with video extensions.

-- 
Fernando Rodriguez

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Neil Bothwick]

On Thu, 3 Sep 2015 22:47:45 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> The absolute best network RFCs are the ones about coffeepot over HTTP,
> and IP by carrier pigoen (or is it Avain IP? something like that)

There's one about matter transfer by email attachments too.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Tact is the intelligence of the heart.


pgpaje64rNcO6.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Francisco Ares]

2015-09-02 21:30 GMT-03:00 David M. Fellows :

> On Wed, 2 Sep 2015 14:19:24 -0300
> Francisco Ares wrote -
> > --089e013a029e929a39051ec6e045
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Sorry for such WAY out of topic message, but Gentoo users are also way
> out
> > of regular computer users.
> >
> > I intend to learn more deep details about networking intrinsics,
> (packets,
> > ports, negotiation, UDP, multicast, unicast, TCP, ethernet, DHCP,
> > protocols, and so on) so I decided to recur to this list.  Googling the
> > terms, just gets me to network administration and equipment
> interconnection.
> >
> > Any hints on web resources for this research?
>
> W. Richard Stevens wrote *the* books on internet protocols back in the days
> when the world was young.  He died in 1999, so they are a bit dated, but
> most
> are available online as free pdfs. They are voluminous.
>
> Try google searchs
>   "Richard Stevens" tcp
>   and "Richard Stevens" unix network programming
> for links.
> Dave F
>


That looks promissing, thanks Dave

Best Regards,
Francisco

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Francisco Ares]

2015-09-02 17:23 GMT-03:00 Alan McKinnon :

> On 02/09/2015 21:43, J. Roeleveld wrote:
> > On Wednesday, September 02, 2015 02:19:24 PM Francisco Ares wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Sorry for such WAY out of topic message, but Gentoo users are also way
> out
> >> of regular computer users.
> >>
> >> I intend to learn more deep details about networking intrinsics,
> (packets,
> >> ports, negotiation, UDP, multicast, unicast, TCP, ethernet, DHCP,
> >> protocols, and so on) so I decided to recur to this list.  Googling the
> >> terms, just gets me to network administration and equipment
> interconnection.
> >>
> >> Any hints on web resources for this research?
> >
> > It would depend on the level you are at now. :)
> >
> > Generally, I know more than enough about how it all works to do my job
> and
> > keep my own systems running reliably.
> >
> > But generally I simply listen when the likes of Alan McKinnon start
> talking
> > about networking.
>
> Hey, that's me!
>
> As it turns out, I got a call last week from an old mate who needed
> someone to deliver his 2-day TCP/IP course on short notice. I had 2 days
> free anyway so I help out.
>
> It all went well till we got into the dirty details of TCP header
> fields. You know how that stuff works - a whole bunch of fields that we
> mostly ignore and concentrate on just the few we know are important.
> Anyway, there was me standing in front of a class going down the list.
> And all I could think of was "WTF is most of this stuff??? Half of these
> fields I've never heard of!"
>
> There was more fun to come. Someone asked to clarify the exact
> differences between unicast, multicast, anycast and any other *cast that
> happens to be. Holy cow. Try explain that off the cuff without having
> time to think the answer through first :-)
>
> To the OP:
>
> Someone suggested RUTE. That's a good one, it may be 14 years old, but
> networking basics have not changed. The Linux Network Administrator's
> Guide available at tldp.org is also worth reading.
>
> And then wikipedia too. Technical facts are usually reliable there and
> most articles give you nice pictures and tables without assuming you
> already know it all anyway.
>
> Finally you already have Gentoo, which is probably the best tool you
> could have to find out such stuff. Read up on a topic, grasp the basic
> theory, then follow it all through on Gentoo seeing how the bits fit
> together.
>
> For the full picture in strict technical language, nothing beats the
> proper Internet RFCs. They are not for the faint-hearted though.
>
> I don't want to scare you off but working in spare time it probably
> takes something like a year to go from networking user to having a
> decent depth of knowledge about it. It's all logical, all the info is
> there, and it can be understood. There's just so much of it :-)
>
>
> >
> > You could start with sites like:
> >
> >
> http://web.stanford.edu/class/msande91si/www-spr04/readings/week1/InternetWhitepaper.htm
> >
> > --
> > Joost
> >
>
>
> --
> Alan McKinnon
> alan.mckin...@gmail.com
>
>
>
Thanks, Alan.

Well, I have noticed that, for the few details I got an eye on, it will
take a good time for an deep dive in.

I will start to look into some RFCs and see how much can be digested. Also,
downloaded RUTE to read during lunch, alternating with some RFCs ;-)

Best Regards,
Francisco

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Alan McKinnon]

On 03/09/2015 21:09, Francisco Ares wrote:
> 
> 
> 2015-09-02 17:23 GMT-03:00 Alan McKinnon  >:
> 
> On 02/09/2015 21:43, J. Roeleveld wrote:
> > On Wednesday, September 02, 2015 02:19:24 PM Francisco Ares wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Sorry for such WAY out of topic message, but Gentoo users are also way 
> out
> >> of regular computer users.
> >>
> >> I intend to learn more deep details about networking intrinsics, 
> (packets,
> >> ports, negotiation, UDP, multicast, unicast, TCP, ethernet, DHCP,
> >> protocols, and so on) so I decided to recur to this list.  Googling the
> >> terms, just gets me to network administration and equipment 
> interconnection.
> >>
> >> Any hints on web resources for this research?
> >
> > It would depend on the level you are at now. :)
> >
> > Generally, I know more than enough about how it all works to do my job 
> and
> > keep my own systems running reliably.
> >
> > But generally I simply listen when the likes of Alan McKinnon start 
> talking
> > about networking.
> 
> Hey, that's me!
> 
> As it turns out, I got a call last week from an old mate who needed
> someone to deliver his 2-day TCP/IP course on short notice. I had 2 days
> free anyway so I help out.
> 
> It all went well till we got into the dirty details of TCP header
> fields. You know how that stuff works - a whole bunch of fields that we
> mostly ignore and concentrate on just the few we know are important.
> Anyway, there was me standing in front of a class going down the list.
> And all I could think of was "WTF is most of this stuff??? Half of these
> fields I've never heard of!"
> 
> There was more fun to come. Someone asked to clarify the exact
> differences between unicast, multicast, anycast and any other *cast that
> happens to be. Holy cow. Try explain that off the cuff without having
> time to think the answer through first :-)
> 
> To the OP:
> 
> Someone suggested RUTE. That's a good one, it may be 14 years old, but
> networking basics have not changed. The Linux Network Administrator's
> Guide available at tldp.org  is also worth reading.
> 
> And then wikipedia too. Technical facts are usually reliable there and
> most articles give you nice pictures and tables without assuming you
> already know it all anyway.
> 
> Finally you already have Gentoo, which is probably the best tool you
> could have to find out such stuff. Read up on a topic, grasp the basic
> theory, then follow it all through on Gentoo seeing how the bits fit
> together.
> 
> For the full picture in strict technical language, nothing beats the
> proper Internet RFCs. They are not for the faint-hearted though.
> 
> I don't want to scare you off but working in spare time it probably
> takes something like a year to go from networking user to having a
> decent depth of knowledge about it. It's all logical, all the info is
> there, and it can be understood. There's just so much of it :-)
> 
> 
> >
> > You could start with sites like:
> >
> >
> 
> http://web.stanford.edu/class/msande91si/www-spr04/readings/week1/InternetWhitepaper.htm
> >
> > --
> > Joost
> >
> 
> 
> --
> Alan McKinnon
> alan.mckin...@gmail.com 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks, Alan.
> 
> Well, I have noticed that, for the few details I got an eye on, it will
> take a good time for an deep dive in.
> 
> I will start to look into some RFCs and see how much can be digested.
> Also, downloaded RUTE to read during lunch, alternating with some RFCs ;-)


The absolute best network RFCs are the ones about coffeepot over HTTP,
and IP by carrier pigoen (or is it Avain IP? something like that)


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Mihamina Rakotomandimby]

In order to complete other answers, I woul like to point out a test 
environment that would be nice:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marionnet

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[J. Roeleveld]

On Thursday, September 03, 2015 09:28:05 AM Mihamina Rakotomandimby wrote:
> In order to complete other answers, I woul like to point out a test
> environment that would be nice:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marionnet

Cool! :)

I wrote something like this at uni.
The version the professor had was old and unstable.

In order to prove I knew my stuff better than him, he challenged me to rewrite 
it for him ;)

But Marionnet looks far more advanced.

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[J. Roeleveld]

On Thursday, September 03, 2015 10:47:45 PM Alan McKinnon wrote:
> The absolute best network RFCs are the ones about coffeepot over HTTP,
> and IP by carrier pigoen (or is it Avain IP? something like that)

Which, if I'm not mistaken, was actually proven to provide a higher bandwidth 
than wired internet available between offices in a big city in South Africa? :)
(Can't find the link quickly)

You just have a higher latency and in some regions a higher chance of packet-
loss ;)

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Francisco Ares]

2015-09-02 16:43 GMT-03:00 J. Roeleveld :

> On Wednesday, September 02, 2015 02:19:24 PM Francisco Ares wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Sorry for such WAY out of topic message, but Gentoo users are also way
> out
> > of regular computer users.
> >
> > I intend to learn more deep details about networking intrinsics,
> (packets,
> > ports, negotiation, UDP, multicast, unicast, TCP, ethernet, DHCP,
> > protocols, and so on) so I decided to recur to this list.  Googling the
> > terms, just gets me to network administration and equipment
> interconnection.
> >
> > Any hints on web resources for this research?
>
> It would depend on the level you are at now. :)
>
> Generally, I know more than enough about how it all works to do my job and
> keep my own systems running reliably.
>
> But generally I simply listen when the likes of Alan McKinnon start talking
> about networking.
>
> You could start with sites like:
>
>
> http://web.stanford.edu/class/msande91si/www-spr04/readings/week1/InternetWhitepaper.htm
>
> --
> Joost
>
>

Thank you, going to check that, too.

Best Regards,
Francisco

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Emanuele Rusconi]

On 2 September 2015 at 19:19, Francisco Ares  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Sorry for such WAY out of topic message, but Gentoo users are also way out
> of regular computer users.
>
> I intend to learn more deep details about networking intrinsics, (packets,
> ports, negotiation, UDP, multicast, unicast, TCP, ethernet, DHCP, protocols,
> and so on) so I decided to recur to this list.  Googling the terms, just
> gets me to network administration and equipment interconnection.
>
> Any hints on web resources for this research?
>
> Thanks a lot and
>
> Best Regards,
> Francisco

The "Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition"[1] has some chapters about
IP, TCP, UDP and DNS.

If you can read Italian, there's also "a2 - appunti di informatica
libera"[2][3].

I've never been interested in the specific subject, so I don't know
about better sources.
I'd probably start from Wikipedia :)

[1] http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz
[2] http://appuntilinux.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/appuntilinux/a2/
[3] http://a2.pluto.it/a2/

-- Emanuele Rusconi

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Emanuele Rusconi]

> 2015-09-02 16:43 GMT-03:00 J. Roeleveld :
>>
>> You could start with sites like:
>>
>>
>> http://web.stanford.edu/class/msande91si/www-spr04/readings/week1/InternetWhitepaper.htm
>>

That seems an excellent introduction! Bookmarked, Some_Day™ I'll read it ;)

-- Emanuele Rusconi

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[David M. Fellows]

On Wed, 2 Sep 2015 14:19:24 -0300 
Francisco Ares wrote -
> --089e013a029e929a39051ec6e045
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Sorry for such WAY out of topic message, but Gentoo users are also way out
> of regular computer users.
> 
> I intend to learn more deep details about networking intrinsics, (packets,
> ports, negotiation, UDP, multicast, unicast, TCP, ethernet, DHCP,
> protocols, and so on) so I decided to recur to this list.  Googling the
> terms, just gets me to network administration and equipment interconnection.
> 
> Any hints on web resources for this research?

W. Richard Stevens wrote *the* books on internet protocols back in the days
when the world was young.  He died in 1999, so they are a bit dated, but most
are available online as free pdfs. They are voluminous.

Try google searchs
  "Richard Stevens" tcp
  and "Richard Stevens" unix network programming
for links.
Dave F

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[J. Roeleveld]

On Wednesday, September 02, 2015 02:19:24 PM Francisco Ares wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Sorry for such WAY out of topic message, but Gentoo users are also way out
> of regular computer users.
> 
> I intend to learn more deep details about networking intrinsics, (packets,
> ports, negotiation, UDP, multicast, unicast, TCP, ethernet, DHCP,
> protocols, and so on) so I decided to recur to this list.  Googling the
> terms, just gets me to network administration and equipment interconnection.
> 
> Any hints on web resources for this research?

It would depend on the level you are at now. :)

Generally, I know more than enough about how it all works to do my job and 
keep my own systems running reliably.

But generally I simply listen when the likes of Alan McKinnon start talking 
about networking.

You could start with sites like:

http://web.stanford.edu/class/msande91si/www-spr04/readings/week1/InternetWhitepaper.htm

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Alan McKinnon]

On 02/09/2015 21:43, J. Roeleveld wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 02, 2015 02:19:24 PM Francisco Ares wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Sorry for such WAY out of topic message, but Gentoo users are also way out
>> of regular computer users.
>>
>> I intend to learn more deep details about networking intrinsics, (packets,
>> ports, negotiation, UDP, multicast, unicast, TCP, ethernet, DHCP,
>> protocols, and so on) so I decided to recur to this list.  Googling the
>> terms, just gets me to network administration and equipment interconnection.
>>
>> Any hints on web resources for this research?
> 
> It would depend on the level you are at now. :)
> 
> Generally, I know more than enough about how it all works to do my job and 
> keep my own systems running reliably.
> 
> But generally I simply listen when the likes of Alan McKinnon start talking 
> about networking.

Hey, that's me!

As it turns out, I got a call last week from an old mate who needed
someone to deliver his 2-day TCP/IP course on short notice. I had 2 days
free anyway so I help out.

It all went well till we got into the dirty details of TCP header
fields. You know how that stuff works - a whole bunch of fields that we
mostly ignore and concentrate on just the few we know are important.
Anyway, there was me standing in front of a class going down the list.
And all I could think of was "WTF is most of this stuff??? Half of these
fields I've never heard of!"

There was more fun to come. Someone asked to clarify the exact
differences between unicast, multicast, anycast and any other *cast that
happens to be. Holy cow. Try explain that off the cuff without having
time to think the answer through first :-)

To the OP:

Someone suggested RUTE. That's a good one, it may be 14 years old, but
networking basics have not changed. The Linux Network Administrator's
Guide available at tldp.org is also worth reading.

And then wikipedia too. Technical facts are usually reliable there and
most articles give you nice pictures and tables without assuming you
already know it all anyway.

Finally you already have Gentoo, which is probably the best tool you
could have to find out such stuff. Read up on a topic, grasp the basic
theory, then follow it all through on Gentoo seeing how the bits fit
together.

For the full picture in strict technical language, nothing beats the
proper Internet RFCs. They are not for the faint-hearted though.

I don't want to scare you off but working in spare time it probably
takes something like a year to go from networking user to having a
decent depth of knowledge about it. It's all logical, all the info is
there, and it can be understood. There's just so much of it :-)


> 
> You could start with sites like:
> 
> http://web.stanford.edu/class/msande91si/www-spr04/readings/week1/InternetWhitepaper.htm
> 
> --
> Joost
> 


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] [WAY OT] wanna learn networking internals

[Francisco Ares]

Thanks, gonna check!

Best Regards,
Francisco

2015-09-02 15:50 GMT-03:00 Emanuele Rusconi :

> On 2 September 2015 at 19:19, Francisco Ares  wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Sorry for such WAY out of topic message, but Gentoo users are also way
> out
> > of regular computer users.
> >
> > I intend to learn more deep details about networking intrinsics,
> (packets,
> > ports, negotiation, UDP, multicast, unicast, TCP, ethernet, DHCP,
> protocols,
> > and so on) so I decided to recur to this list.  Googling the terms, just
> > gets me to network administration and equipment interconnection.
> >
> > Any hints on web resources for this research?
> >
> > Thanks a lot and
> >
> > Best Regards,
> > Francisco
>
> The "Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition"[1] has some chapters about
> IP, TCP, UDP and DNS.
>
> If you can read Italian, there's also "a2 - appunti di informatica
> libera"[2][3].
>
> I've never been interested in the specific subject, so I don't know
> about better sources.
> I'd probably start from Wikipedia :)
>
> [1] http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz
> [2] http://appuntilinux.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/appuntilinux/a2/
> [3] http://a2.pluto.it/a2/
>
> -- Emanuele Rusconi
>
>