Product Description

If you've ever wondered how Linux carries out the complicated tasks assigned to it by the IP protocols - or if you just want to learn about modern networking through real-life examples - "Understanding Linux Network Internals" is for you. Like the popular O'Reilly book, "Understanding the Linux Kernel", this book clearly explains the underlying concepts and teaches you how to follow the actual C code that implements it. Although some background in the TCP/IP protocols is helpful, you can learn a great deal from this text about the protocols themselves and their uses. And, if you already have a base knowledge of C, you can use the book's code walkthroughs to figure out exactly what this sophisticated part of the Linux kernel is doing. Part of the difficulty in understanding networks - and implementing them - is that the tasks are broken up and performed at many different times by different pieces of code. One of the strengths of this book is to integrate the pieces and reveal the relationships between far-flung functions and data structures. "Understanding Linux Network Internals" is both a big-picture discussion and a no-nonsense guide to the details of Linux networking. The topics include: key problems with networking; network interface card (NIC) device drivers; system initialization; layer 2 (link-layer) tasks and implementation; layer 3 (IPv4) tasks and implementation; neighbor infrastructure and protocols (ARP); bridging; routing; and ICMP. Author Christian Benvenuti, an operating system designer specializing in networking, explains much more than how Linux code works. He shows the purposes of major networking features and the trade-offs involved in choosing one solution over another. A large number of flowcharts and other diagrams enhance the book's understandability.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #191324 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-29
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1035 pages

Review
"Anyone who works with Linux networking should have a copy to hand to help with those inexplicable problems and to better understand how it all works." - James Millen, BJHC & IM, November 2006

From the Publisher
A no-nonsense guide to Linux networking, Understanding Linux Network Internals offers a clear view of the underlying concepts and teaches you to follow the C code that implements it. Topics include system initialization, network interface card (NIC) device drivers, bridging, routing, ICMP, and more. Numerous diagrams, flowcharts, and examples deliver optimum understandability.

About the Author
Christian Benvenuti received his masters degree in Computer Science at the University of Bologna in Italy. He collaborated for a few years with the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, where he developed ad-hoc software based on the Linux kernel, was a scientific consultant for a project on remote collaboration, and served as an instructor for several training sessions on networking. The trainings, held mainly in Europe, Africa, and South America were all based on Linux systems and addressed to scientists from developing countries, where the ICTP has been promoting Linux for many years. He occasionally collaborates with a non-profit organization founded by ICTP members, Collaborium.org, to continue promoting Linux on developing countries. In the past few years he worked as a software engineer for Cisco Systems in the Silicon Valley, where he focused on Layer two switching, high availability, and network security.

Customer Reviews

A job half done
A promising start, but fails to deal with TCP (the author cites 'lack of space'); as a result, this is only half the book the title claims, and bettered by other texts.

superb
This book is superb (especially those many nice diagrams and well-written clear descriptions). The author has done a great job. The book will surely help many including me understand networking codes in Linux. Though it covers rather narrow range of protocols (IP routing and ARP) in TCP/IP stacks, the acquired knowledge from the book with much less efforts will be very useful in reading source codes of other protocols in the stack. I appreciate the author's time and patience in writing the book. I will anticipate his second volume.