Someone passed along a great link this week for those who grapple with networking issues. This fairly exhaustive guide offers a solid base of TCP/IP education, DNS knowledge and additional tips and techniques helpful to anyone managing networks large and small.

Authored by Charles M. Kozierok, the guide was most recently updated in 2004, current considering most TCP/IP changes have some age on them.

Even after having dealt with networks, both from an architecture and administration perspective, I found some excellent kernels of information to add to my “black book” of tips, hacks and how-tos.

I particularly liked the coverage of (and refresher course for some) the various layers of the networking model. For simple web development, this is not necessarily always critical, but as one delves deeper into complex web applications and has to identify areas of support, knowing what is occurringon different TCP or IP layers can be important.

For those new to topics like caching, proxies or IP6 – this is a good introduction to those areas of networking.

Some additional sites I have used over the years:

Wikipedia

IBM Redbook on TCP/IP

A classic primer on networking

Written By:

Blane Warrene

Blane is a writer and researcher focusing on Apple and Open Source technologies. Prior to this, he helped found a commercial software and consulting venture, and worked in the financial services sector as a director of technology and in varying technical roles. Blane maintains Open Sourcery: SitePoint's Open Source Blog.

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