Introduction to Networking

This book was written over a period of five years in my spare time while consulting at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) for various academic departments. Some of the material is reprints of articles that I have written for the Linux Gazette.

When I started consulting in 1994, there were very few books that explored data communications for network computing. The books that I read on data communications only gave a partial view of the "big picture" and tended to assume that the reader had previous knowledge of networking and data communications.

I've tried to sort out the confusing issues in this book and to focus on only the topics of the "moment". I've been successful in the classroom with this approach and hope that you find it meaningful too. I find that most books on the Linux operating system do not cover the data communications aspects of networking. The purpose of this book is to fill this void and introduce the concepts of data communication with a slight leaning towards the Linux operating system.

This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/)

Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is prohibited without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Distribution of the work or derivative of the work in any standard (paper) book form is prohibited unless prior permission is obtained from the copyright holder.' to the license reference or copy.