spurgeon@Jessica.stanford.edu (Charles Spurgeon) (06/11/88)
Here's a list of useful TCP/IP and Ethernet books that I wrote up recently. It contains the available Ethernet specs, as well as much else of use to networkers. I've included all the access information I could find, along with some annotations. Long message follows. The Ethernet specs are near the end of the list. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Introductory -- 1. "Local Area Networks", by John E. McNamara, 1985, 165pps with index and glossary. $29.00 (Telephone quote from DEC Press). Published by Digital Press, ISBN 0-932376-79-7. Digital Press part number for ordering is EY-00051-DP. Digital Press phone is 800-343-8321. This is a good general introduction to the concepts and technologies of LANs. As stated in the preface: " This book is intended for students, computer system managers, telecommunications managers, and others who want to become more familiar with local area networks. Since product offerings in this area are constantly changing, a deliberate attempt has been made to emphasize the general principles, operating characteristics, and problem areas of local area network hardware, rather than cite specific product examples." Of special note is the chapter on "Administrative considerations for large networks" which is largely taken from David Clark's 1983 "M.I.T. Campus Network Implementation Planning Document". This chapter mentions many of the problems of supporting large campus area networks with special reference to the issue of multiple protocol support on campus backbone networks. -- Two books by Douglas Comer -- Douglas Comer has written two books of special interest to the networker. His books are comprehensive and he has an excellent writing style, making these the best books I've seen on the TCP/IP protocols. 2. "Internetworking With TCP/IP, Principles, Protocols, and Architecture". By Douglas E. Comer. 1988, 382pps with index and glossary. Prentice-Hall, Inc., New Jersey, ISBN 0-13-470154-2. $36.00. (Stanford Bookstore price.) As stated in the preface: "For professionals, the book provides a comprehensive introduction to TCP/IP technology and the architecture of the Internet. Although it is not intended to replace protocol standards, the book is a good starting point for learning about internetworking because it gives a uniform overview that emphasizes principles. Moreover, it gives the reader perspective that can be extremely difficult to obtain from individual protocol documents." "The book is organized into four main parts. Chapters 1 and 2 form an introduction that provides an overview and discusses existing technologies. In particular, Chapter 2 reviews physical network hardware. The intention is to provide basic intuition about what is possible, not to spend inordinate time on hardware details. Chapters 3-12 describe the TCP/IP Internet from the viewpoint of a single host, showing the basic services available and the protocols a host uses to access them. They cover the basics of Internet addressing and routing as well as the notion of protocol layering. Chapters 13-16 describe the architecture of the Internet when viewed globally. They explore the core gateway system and the protocols gateways use to exchange routing information. Finally, Chapters 17-19 discuss application level services available in the Internet. They present the client-server model of interaction and give several examples of how one can organize client and server software. The last section discusses electronic mail and the domain name system, two topics that are extremely popular." I particularly like the real-world orientation of this book. For instance, there is an appendix on "4.3 BSD UNIX Interface to Internet Protocols" that describes Berkeley sockets and presents example client and server programs for a network whois service. There's another appendix on "Hints And Suggestions For Implementors" full of useful tips for network programmers. And there's a nice appendix called "A Guide To RFCs" which explains the Requests For Comments completely and with due regard for the early folklore and development of the ARPAnet. A guide to the first one thousand RFCs, extracted from RFC1000, is presented as well as an electronic mail addresses and an 800 phone number for getting your own copies of the RFCs. 3. "Operating System Design - Volume II, Internetworking with Xinu". By Douglas Comer. 1987, 567pps with index. Published by Prentice-Hall, Inc., New Jersey, ISBN 0-13-637414-X. $39.33. (Stanford Bookstore price.) As stated in the preface: "Chapters 1-11 comprise a self-contained unit that covers the basics of internet communication. Each of the eleven chapters explores one component of internet protocol software, motivating and explaining how that component fits into the overall system design. The unit starts with a detailed examination of one network technology, the Ethernet, and moves on to consider the internet concept, address resolution, internet datagrams, routing, control messages, user datagrams, and datagram demultiplexing. Later chapters build on the basic communication system, examining client-server interaction, and remote file access, as well as a user interface and commands that manipulate both local and remote files." "Written as a continuation of 'Operating System Design - The XINU Approach' (Comer [1984]), this text starts where the earlier one ends. The two volumes were written to support a two-semester course in systems design that encompasses operating systems and networks... ." This book is based on the XINU operating system software which is available from Purdue University as described in the book. XINU was written to give students the experience of studying a UNIX-like operating system whose source code was available for modification. Lots of software examples in every chapter make this an especially useful text for aspiring network programmers. It's also good resource for those just curious as to what network software looks like and how it fits together. -- Three books by William Stallings -- William Stallings has published a series of three books that can be helpful in hacking one's way through the jargon laden jungles of network standards - especially the OSI and IEEE standards. 4. "Volume 1. Handbook of Computer Communications Standards, The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Model and OSI-Related Standards". By William Stallings. 1987, 322pps with index. Macmillan Publishing Co., NY, ISBN 0-02-948071-X. $34.95 (printed on back cover). The first volume sets the stage by explaining the OSI standards effort and the organization of the OSI standards process. The OSI reference model is then presented, and each layer is discussed in depth with lots of detail. OSI is a moving target, and some of the material here is no doubt already dated, but it's still a good explanation of the whole OSI world. 5. "Volume 2. Handbook of Computer Communications Standards, Local Network Standards". By William Stallings. 1987, 244pps with index. Macmillan Publishing Co,, NY, ISBN 0-02-948070-1. $34.95 (printed on back cover). This book covers the IEEE 802 series of standards and the emerging FDDI standard. The material described here makes it possible to decipher the 802.3 standard. After a brief introduction covering network topologies and media, Stallings explains the standardization efforts, including the structure of the standards committees and how the various standards agencies interact. Next the IEEE 802 standards structure is described, with the various subsets explained. Chapter 4 describes the 802.3 standard including variants such as 10BASE2. Also included is a brief description of the major differences between 802.3 and DIX Ethernet. An appendix provides a short introduction to the OSI reference model, so that you don't need volume 1 to figure out volume 2. 6. "Volume 3. Handbook of Computer Communications Standards, Department of Defense (DOD) Protocol Standards". By William Stallings, Paul Mockapetris, Sue McLeod and Tony Michel, 1988, 206pps with index. Macmillan Publishing Co., NY, ISBN 0-02-948072-8. $34.95 (printed on back cover). This volume is a guide to the TCP/IP protocol suite. As stated in the preface: "...Volume 3, covers the five military standard protocols that have been issued by the DOD. The book begins by introducing the four layer communications architecture that is the framework within which these standards fit. Following the introduction of this architecture, a chapter is devoted to each of the standards." "In contrast with the other books in this series, several of the chapters of this book were written by contributors. Each contributor is intimately familiar with the topic under discussion: biographies of the main author and the contributing authors are found at the end of the book." The chapters on IP and TCP appear to have been written by Stallings. The chapter on FTP is by Tony Michel, the SMTP chapter by Paul Mockapetris and the Telnet chapter by Sue McLeod. The chapters are good descriptions of the various protocols. On the other hand, I prefer Douglas Comer's book, for reasons given above. -- Ethernet Standards -- The next several items deal with the various Ethernet standards in use today. 7. "Ethernet Local Area Network Specification Version 2.0. November, 1982". 103pps, $32.00 (Quoted by phone from DEC-Direct). DEC Part Number: AA-K759B-TK. Available from DEC-Direct by calling 800-344-4825. This is version 2 of the original ten megabit Ethernet specification. The newer 802.3 standard supersedes the DEC-Intel-Xerox (DIX) spec listed here, but most TCP/IP implementations are still based on this DIX specification. Since this specification is not based on the OSI model it is relatively jargon free and reads like something close to English, making it a much more approachable document than the IEEE standards. 8. "Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection, ANSI/IEEE Std 802.3, 1985, ISO/DIS 8802/3". ISBN 0-471-82749-5. Available from, IEEE Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, or by calling 1-201-981-0060, or from technical bookstores (see below). $25.00 (from IEEE publications catalog). The new Ethernet specifications. Much has changed. Much stayed the same. Vendors like to gloss over the differences (it's a lot easier than trying to describe them!) and you're on your own trying to figure out how it all works. This standard was written to comply with the OSI model. As a result, it contains much more jargon and can be much less understandable at first. An explanatory guide like Stalling's volume 2 is a requirement to help the newcomer to OSI make any sense of it all. 9. "Supplements to Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection, ANSI/IEEE Std 802.3a,b,c,and e-1988". ISBN 0-471-61153-0 Same access as above. $35.00 (from IEEE publications catalog). A set of additions to the 1985 802.3 standard, including the thin Ethernet standard (Type 10BASE2). Also included is the broadband standard (Type 10BROAD36) and a revision of section 9 of the 1985 standard on repeaters. -- Ethernet hardware information -- None of the Ethernet standards docs are very useful when it comes to actually building, testing, and operating an Ethernet. For that you need information about what topologies are allowed, how Ethernet equipment is configured, how to attach connectors and all the rest. While there isn't a good general book available on Ethernet design and construction, the following manual can help. 10. "LAN Cable and Accessories Installation Manual", January 1986, published by Hewlett-Packard Co.. HP Part No. 5955-7680. $45.00 (Quoted on phone by H.P. Direct). Order from H.P. Direct at 800-538-8787. This manual is somewhat dated and contains instructions for installing thick cable transceivers that are obsolete, for instance. On the other hand, the network configuration information is useful and the guidelines for routing cables and grounding issues are informative. My major disagreement with H.P.'s grounding instructions is that they allow metallic cable between building frames if H.P.'s surge arrestors are installed. Given the ease of using fiber optic repeaters, and the dangers inherent in metallic network cables that travel between building frames, there seems little excuse for not using fiber in these situations. In any event, the manual really shines when it comes to complete descriptions of thick cable and thin cable wire strippers and connector crimpers. The H.P. manual has diagrams showing how to strip each kind of cable and how to crimp on N connectors and BNC connectors. There's a short section on verifying the cables you've built, and a longer section on how to use a Time Domain Reflectometer to test networks. Another useful section is the one on how to open up a crimp tool that has been closed on something you didn't want to crimp (like your finger!). Don't laugh - this section came in handy the other day when a student used a crimp tool with a 75 ohm UHF crimp die in it to crimp a 50 ohm N connector. The instructions in the H.P. manual allowed us to get the mauled N connector out without dismantling the whole tool and ruining the precision adjustments. -- Access -- Aside from various phone numbers listed above, the following book stores can be of service: Computer Literacy Bookshop, 2590 North First St., San Jose, CA 95131. Phone 408-435-1118 for mail orders. A good source for computer and electronics books of all kinds. They carry the IEEE network standards, and can probably supply most of the books listed above. Jim Joyce's UNIX Bookstore, 47 Potomac St., San Francisco, CA 94117. Phone 415-626-7581 for mail orders. A handy resource for UNIX-related books of all kinds, including the Douglas Comer books.