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Free Introduction to Networking Book

Posted by michael on from the layers-upon-layers dept.

prostoalex writes "Eugene Blanchard made his Introduction to Data Communications (also known as Introduction to Networking) available for free. The book covers a broad variety of topics such as RS-232, Ethernet, RF, TCP/IP and many other topics in its 63 chapters. This is a valuable reference and read for those just starting to understand networking and data communications as well as seasoned professionals in the field."

18 comments

  1. Gift horse by rednip · · Score: 1

    I'd hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but my first look at a page was this grafic of the parts of a PC which is (obviously) out of date. It doens't even include an optical drive, or a mouse for that matter.

    --
    The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
    1. Re:Gift horse by mooingyak · · Score: 1

      There's also an appendix listing well known ports. I noticed Port 22 is listed as "unassigned", which I believe has been used for SSH for quite a while.

      --
      William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
    2. Re:Gift horse by rednip · · Score: 0, Offtopic
      Was that supposed to be funny, or are you really that stupid?
      You my good AC 'sir', are a thin skinned ass. Uh, the entire appendix should be labeled 'historical' and clearly hasn't been updated in at least 5 years. I applaud the author for making this tome available, but I'd probably be better as a good seed for a wiki.
      --
      The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
    3. Re:Gift horse by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Looks like a Socket 7 motherboard with VESA slots, about mid-1990s.

      If you want screwed motherboard graphics, check the insides of a PC case in Half-Life 2. The motheboard is installed backwards. Don't know if that's a feature or a bug. :)

  2. Damn..... by kaens · · Score: 1

    Should've just linked to the parent site like this
    Cause that is one awesome site.

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    kaens.blogspot.com
    1. Re:Damn..... by kaens · · Score: 3, Informative

      Should've previewed. http://www.techbooksforfree.com/

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      kaens.blogspot.com
    2. Re:Damn..... by ninejaguar · · Score: 1
      Awesome!

      = 9J =

  3. Irrelevant by brunes69 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That has nothing at all to do with the subject matter the book is about. The basic concepts that these intro to data comm. textbooks cover have not changed since the 60's.

    I wish this had been availlable 4 years ago while I was still in University, it would have saved me $70.

  4. Is this a joke? by wonkamaster · · Score: 3, Informative
    I *quickly* flipped through the contents and found the content to be way off. My favorite part is 42g (EGRP):
    "EGRP was created to solve many of the problems with RIP and has become the default routing protocol across the Internet."
    First of all, there is no protocol EGRP. If there were such a thing as a default Internet routing protocol I'd say it was BGP. Not to mention that there is no routing protocol called EGRP.
    ...it uses up to 5 metrics (conditions) to determine the best route:

    * Bandwidth
    * Hop Count (Delay) - maximum of 255
    * Maximum Packet size
    * Reliability
    * Traffic (Load)
    Oh he means EIGRP, the Cisco proprietary protocol. Not only is it not an exterior routing protocol (a requirement to handle Internet routing) it's not supported by anything other than Cisco routers! And most Cisco-only shops don't use it because it's distance vector (even if enhanced)!!!

    And for what it's worth, EIGRP doesn't use hop count or max packet size in its metric calculation to determine the best route. Per Cisco, It uses bandwidth, load, delay and reliability in its calculation.

    My advice, you're better off staying away from this book. You can learn accurate information elsewhere, even if you have to pay for it.
    1. Re:Is this a joke? by topham · · Score: 2, Informative

      It -used- to be a requirement to use Cisco equipment, and a cursory look around the net turns up usage of ERP/EIRP/EIGRP as meaning the same thing. As well as the fact it seems to be a reference to the protocol BGP/BGRP replaced.

    2. Re:Is this a joke? by wonkamaster · · Score: 1

      Based on your profile you don't seem to be a troll, so I'm going on the assumption that you're not overly familiar with networking and it's history.

      EIGRP is a proprietary protocol created by Cisco to get around the limitations of IGRP. IGRP was another proprietary protocol (recently removed from newer Cisco software) that was created to overcome the scalability limitations of RIP. So RIP was first (also unique in that the RFC describing it came years after it was implemented by vendors). IGRP was created by Cisco to address the problems of frequent updates (IGRP is 90 sec, RIP is 30), better packet utilization (IGRP is up to 104 updates/packet, RIP is 25) and better path selection (IGRP was a weighted composite metric, RIP a hop count). IGRP was much better than RIP and widely deployed by campuses. I'd go so far as to say that it could have been considered a default routing protocol at one point -- not because other protocols weren't supported (RIP has always been supported) but because it was the "default" choice for administrators of large networks.

      Note that at this time none of these protocols were suitable for handling the exchange of Internet routes. Not that there was an Internet at that time, but there was the Arpanet. The Arpanet eventually moved to IP and away from hop-count based metrics (well before RIP, IGRP or EIGRP was even thought of) to a protocol suitable for handling the exchange of routes between different administrations, EGP. As the Internet evolved EGP thru v2 and BGP thru v4 were used to share routing updates between autonomous systems.

      The author, as you, seem to be confusing EIGRP (the features of which the author describes in the cited text) with EGP protocols (which handle Internet routing). The only EGPs that have ever existed on the Internet are EGP and BGP. References to ERP and EIRP you found on the Internet are probably typos or possibly mistakes by people who simply didn't remember the acronym. At no point are they, nor were they, synonymous with a real protocol.

      With just a cursory glance at the Internet it may appear that the author could be grounded, but anyone that's been around long enough knows that there was never a point in time where the authors text would have been correct.

  5. What? no PDF? by web_boyo_in_sac · · Score: 0, Troll

    Unless I'm blind, where is the PDF? I'd like to do some offline reading, I mean, isn't that what PDF's were for? Portability? all in all though, not a bad read.

  6. Overall Impact by cyberkeyz · · Score: 1

    You know, I would think that most of the Internet Populiist would be open to any sort of free info. In the end, individuals like myselph greatly appriciate all the documintation that we could get our gruby little hands on. Information should be free to an extent, right? Well that just leads us into a much greater subject that I'm not going to get into right now for obvious reasons. :)

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    Knowledge Is Power Wisdom Is Control Time Is Eternal
  7. What? no PDF?-Chain. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'll give the same advice I gave on the other site.

    Use pavuk (or equivalent) and copy the site. Then run the site through HTMLDOC and there's your PDF.

    For those interested in serial communications? Here's a good book on that subject.

  8. Other free network book by Oscaro · · Score: 3, Informative

    This one is also very very good, and free.

  9. Sweet! by cuteseal · · Score: 1

    Now tell me why I bought a $59.99 textbook for my Business Data Communications class again? :/

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  10. What, no ATM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What, no ATM?