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 <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com
> <mailto:alan.mckinnon@×××××.com>>:
>
>     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 <http://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.mckinnon@×××××.com <mailto:alan.mckinnon@×××××.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.mckinnon@×××××.com