How to Use This Book

The books in the Sams Teach Yourself series are designed to help you learn a topic in a few easy and accessible sessions. Sams Teach Yourself TCP/IP in 24 Hours, Fourth Edition, is divided into six parts. Each part brings you a step closer to mastering the goal of proficiency in TCP/IP.

• Part I, “TCP/IP Basics,” introduces you to TCP/IP and the TCP/IP protocol stack.

• Part II, “The TCP/IP Protocol System,” takes a close look at each of TCP/IP’s protocol layers: the Network Access, Internet, Transport, and Application layers. You learn about IP addressing and subnetting, as well as physical networks and application services. You’ll also learn about the protocols that operate at each of TCP/IP’s layers.

• Part III, “Networking with TCP/IP,” describes some of the devices, services, and utilities necessary for supporting TCP/IP networks. You learn about routing and network hardware, DHCP, DNS, and IPv6.

• Part IV, “TCP/IP Utilities,” introduces some of the common utilities used to configure, manage, and troubleshoot TCP/IP networks. You learn about Ping, Netstat, FTP, Telnet, and other network utilities.

• Part V, “TCP/IP and the Internet,” describes the world’s largest TCP/IP network: the Internet. You learn about the structure of the Internet. You also learn about HTTP, HTML, XML, email, and Internet streaming.

• Part VI, “Advanced Topics,” describes topics such as web services, messaging, the semantic web, and TCP/IP security. Part VI ends with a case study showing how the components of TCP/IP interact in a real working environment.

The concepts in this book, like TCP/IP itself, are independent of a system and descend from the standards defined in Internet Requests for Comment (RFCs).