The TCP/IP Guide: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Internet Protocols Reference

Would 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.

I'm an IT professional who spends most of his time doing mundane tasks like virus removal, data backups and basic networking so a lot of the knowledge contained in this book may be things I never or rarely use in real life. However, I'm always trying to push my knowledge further and I'm very picky about tracking down the right books to read and keep in my library, and this one is immediately in my library now.I would classify this book as a "comprehensive introduction" to TCP/IP. I know a fair deal about TCP/IP already from my work, but this book goes WAY beyond that. It's a giant book, 1500+ pages into the appendices and it covers a very broad swath of material.EDIT: After going through the contents of the book more thoroughly, there are many illustrations that really explain important concepts that I personally need to review from my previous readings on TCP/IP like the OSI layer model and the specifics of bit placement in relation to addressing. This book goes really in depth in parts and I'm very looking forward to digging in! You will get your money's worth. Maybe too much information, but I'd rather have more than less.I would say that this book should be in your library and is a must buy for people wanting to dig into TCP/IP to understand how it all works. No hesitation recommending this book.

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.

I just bought this book in 2019. It is an "older book" (copyright 2005). Things in the digital world change monthly if not daily. I am in IT (Dev/Sys Eng) and I like the low-level details of how stuff works, even for reference. I'm sure some higher-level protocols (or "wrapped" functions) got changed, updated, or disappeared over 15 years. However, the TCP/IP protocol and its underpinnings are still relevant today and are the backbone of the Internet. This book is the "meat and potatoes" of communications even if there is some new lipstick currently. This is one heck of a low-level, down-and-dirty book and highly recommended to anyone who is in CS, IT, Dev or just a nerd. You couldn't get much more detailed unless this "Bible" was written in Assembler! It's a must-have IMHO! The bones of it should be relevant into the forseeable future.

Since I got 6 years ago volumes 1, 2 and 3 of Steven's TCP/IP Illustrated, I hadn't found a title with so a thorough and detailed description of TCP/IP protocols.Kozierok's written a very, very detailed and authoritative guide. I agree with other reviews that Steven's books still are the best hands-on reference on TCP/IP available, and an indispensable resource. Nevertheless, 'The TCP/IP Guide' is going to mark a milestone in the TCP/IP field.I don't usually get smashed simply by the length of a book (and this is a very thick one, believe me...), because many times you find no more than lots of padding stuff. This book is simply unbelievable: more than 80 chapters with descriptions of every inner and deeper functional detail of the TCP/IP protocol stack. A lot of informative and very well-designed diagrams and graphics helps very much to understand key topics.