Organization (TCP/IP Network Administration, 3rd Edition)

0.2. Organization

Conceptually, this book is divided into three parts: fundamental concepts, tutorial, and reference. The first three chapters are a basic discussion of the TCP/IP protocols and services. This discussion provides the fundamental concepts necessary to understand the rest of the book. The remaining chapters provide a "how-to" tutorial. Chapter 4, "Getting Started"-Chapter 7, "Configuring Routing " discuss how to plan a network installation and configure the basic software necessary to get a network running. Chapter 8, "Configuring DNS"-Chapter 11, " Configuring Apache" discuss how to set up various important network services. Chapter 12, "Network Security " and Chapter 13, " Troubleshooting TCP/IP" cover how to perform the ongoing tasks that are essential for a reliable network: security and troubleshooting. The book concludes with a series of appendixes that are technical references for important commands and programs.

This book contains the following chapters:

Chapter 1, " Overview of TCP/IP" gives the history of TCP/IP, a description of the protocol architecture, and a basic explanation of how the protocols function.

Chapter 2, "Delivering the Data" describes addressing and how data passes through a network to reach the proper destination.

Chapter 3, "Network Services" discusses the relationship between clients and server systems and the various services that are central to the function of a modern internet.

Chapter 4, "Getting Started" begins the discussion of network setup and configuration. This chapter discusses the preliminary configuration planning needed before you configure the systems on your network.

Chapter 5, "Basic Configuration " describes how to configure TCP/IP in the Unix kernel, and how to configure the system to start the network services.

Chapter 6, "Configuring the Interface " tells you how to identify a network interface to the network software. This chapter provides examples of Ethernet and PPP interface configurations.

Chapter 7, "Configuring Routing " describes how to set up routing so that systems on your network can communicate properly with other networks. It covers the static routing table, commonly used routing protocols, and gated, a package that provides the latest implementations of several routing protocols.

Chapter 8, "Configuring DNS" describes how to administer the name server program that converts system names to Internet addresses.

Chapter 9, "Local Network Services" describes how to configure many common network servers. The chapter discusses the DHCP configuration server, the LPD print server, the POP and IMAP mail servers, the Network File System (NFS), the Samba file and print server, and the Network Information System (NIS).

Chapter 10, "sendmail " discusses how to configure sendmail, which is the daemon responsible for delivering electronic mail.

Chapter 11, " Configuring Apache" describes how the Apache web server software is configured.

Chapter 12, "Network Security " discusses how to live on the Internet without excessive risk. This chapter covers the security threats introduced by the network, and describes the plans and preparations you can make to meet those threats.

Chapter 13, " Troubleshooting TCP/IP" tells you what to do when something goes wrong. It describes the techniques and tools used to troubleshoot TCP/IP problems and gives examples of actual problems and their solutions.

Appendix A, "PPP Tools" is a reference guide to the various programs used to configure a serial port for TCP/IP. The reference covers dip, pppd, and chat.

Appendix B, "A gated Reference" is a reference guide to the configuration language of the gated routing package.

Appendix C, "A named Reference" is a reference guide to the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) name server software.

Appendix D, "A dhcpd Reference" is a reference guide to the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Daemon (dhcpd).

Appendix E, "A sendmail Reference" is a reference guide to sendmail syntax, options, and flags.

Appendix F, "Solaris httpd.conf File" lists the contents of the Apache configuration file discussed in Chapter 11, " Configuring Apache".

Appendix G, "RFC Excerpts" contains detailed protocol references taken directly from the RFCs that support the protocol troubleshooting examples in Chapter 13, " Troubleshooting TCP/IP". This appendix explains how to obtain your own copies of the RFCs.