On 02/09/2015 21:43, J. Roeleveld wrote: > On Wednesday, September 02, 2015 02:19:24 PM Francisco Ares wrote: >> Hi, >> >> Sorry for such WAY out of topic message, but Gentoo users are also way out >> of regular computer users. >> >> I intend to learn more deep details about networking intrinsics, (packets, >> ports, negotiation, UDP, multicast, unicast, TCP, ethernet, DHCP, >> protocols, and so on) so I decided to recur to this list. Googling the >> terms, just gets me to network administration and equipment interconnection. >> >> Any hints on web resources for this research? > > It would depend on the level you are at now. :) > > Generally, I know more than enough about how it all works to do my job and > keep my own systems running reliably. > > But generally I simply listen when the likes of Alan McKinnon start talking > about networking.
Hey, that's me! As it turns out, I got a call last week from an old mate who needed someone to deliver his 2-day TCP/IP course on short notice. I had 2 days free anyway so I help out. It all went well till we got into the dirty details of TCP header fields. You know how that stuff works - a whole bunch of fields that we mostly ignore and concentrate on just the few we know are important. Anyway, there was me standing in front of a class going down the list. And all I could think of was "WTF is most of this stuff??? Half of these fields I've never heard of!" There was more fun to come. Someone asked to clarify the exact differences between unicast, multicast, anycast and any other *cast that happens to be. Holy cow. Try explain that off the cuff without having time to think the answer through first :-) To the OP: Someone suggested RUTE. That's a good one, it may be 14 years old, but networking basics have not changed. The Linux Network Administrator's Guide available at tldp.org is also worth reading. And then wikipedia too. Technical facts are usually reliable there and most articles give you nice pictures and tables without assuming you already know it all anyway. Finally you already have Gentoo, which is probably the best tool you could have to find out such stuff. Read up on a topic, grasp the basic theory, then follow it all through on Gentoo seeing how the bits fit together. For the full picture in strict technical language, nothing beats the proper Internet RFCs. They are not for the faint-hearted though. I don't want to scare you off but working in spare time it probably takes something like a year to go from networking user to having a decent depth of knowledge about it. It's all logical, all the info is there, and it can be understood. There's just so much of it :-) > > You could start with sites like: > > http://web.stanford.edu/class/msande91si/www-spr04/readings/week1/InternetWhitepaper.htm > > -- > Joost > -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
