<summary for those hovering on the 'D' key>
if you haven't gotten around to learning TCP/IP basics and want to,
drop whatever you're doing and read RFC 1180 right NOW :)
</summary>
eek, sorry to keep this on-list (I think Matt's msg wasn't) but ...
to cut straight to the point:
> On Wed, 19 Jul 2000, Matt Kozera wrote:
>
> > crap. Would DNS and all this be covered ? When I think of TCPIP i'm
> > really thinking about all this OSI stuff, layers, etc .. doesn't
> > really seem to be my interest right now. The practical usable
> > information maybe, how useful is knowing so and so has seven layers ?
Matt, if all you want to learn is how a few protocols that run over
TCP or UDP work (DNS, SMTP, HTTP etc) then it may be possible to do
so without learning about network layers.
If you want to learn *anything* more than that, ie. about routing,
bridging, and switching, about how to set up a network, about why it
is that the above protocols can possibly work transparently between
someone's wireless handheld in Tokyo and the server you're not
supposed to be running over cable in Sydney ... you *need* to learn
about the layered network model.
I'll rephrase that: I've seen people attempt to learn "networking"
without learning this concept. They make it some of the way (ie.
get a bit of a handle on how segments/packets/frames get stuffed
and thus how data gets transported) but get completely, head
spinningly, uselessly confused when trying to grasp ARP, RARP, ICMP,
and dealing with multiple interfaces, not to mention the effects of
encapsulating or encrypting at different stages.
I'll add one more reference:
RFC 1180: A TCP/IP Tutorial
http://RF.Cx/rfc1180.html
-- or /usr/doc/RFC/rfc1180.txt, if you're lucky ;)
it's concise (<30 pages of ASCII text and art :) and explains the
concept of a layered network without referring to the ISO model.
This is actually a pretty good thing because the idea of a linear
protocol stack is confusing when considering how, eg., TCP ports
are unique across multiple IP interfaces.
Conrad.
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