Being CS

TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1

I finally finished TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1 by Richard Stevens - what a great book.
I have read books about TCP/IP before, and had quite a bit of knowledge about the topic before starting the book, but Stevens method of showing the actual transactions using tcpdump made everything much clearer, than anything I had read before. I spent a bit of time looking at what the tcpdump output for my own network, which was quite interesting. I think that I will spend a lot of time just monitoring my tcpdump output while surfing.
Now to the review of the book. Tomorrow I am starting TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 3, because it is nice and short and does not require Volume 2.

Of the first few chapters I especially liked the chapter on ARP, which was something I had not heard of before, and which I understand very well now. The chapters on Ping, Traceroute and UPD were very useful, as was all the coverage of the different tools. Apart from the chapters on SNMAP (which I found rather boring), and TCP I did not learn that much about new concepts, but everything I knew about TCP/IP finally came together and made sense. The TCP coverage was very lengthy and slightly boring sometimes, mostly because I read it all in one sitting. You will learn anything you ever wanted about TCP (well, for now). Overall this was one of the most interesting and enlightening books I have read in a long time.