The Internet owes much of its success to the simplicity and robustness of its protocols. This book is a coherent collection of 11 “request for comment” documents (RFCs), defining the Internet from the ground up. It is about the fundamentals of Internet communication, including the protocols, the structure of the network, the host requirements, and the extensions of the Internet Protocol for broadcasting and multicasting.

The RFCs included in this volume are RFC768, which defines the User Datagram Protocol; RFC791 and RFC792, which define the Internet Protocol (IP) and its complementary Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP); RFC793, which defines the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP); RFC919 and RFC922, about broadcasting Internet datagrams and the corresponding requirements in the presence of subnets; RFC950, presenting the Internet Standard Subnetting Procedure; RFC1112, which defines the Host Extensions for IP Multicasting; RFC1122 and RFC1123, which discuss the requirements for Internet hosts at the communication layers and the application and support layers, respectively; and RFC 1127, which discusses the goals of the Requirements for Internet Hosts RFC, any settled and open issues identified by the Network Working Group of the IETF, and other future work for the development of the Internet.

RFC documents, like most standards documents, are concise. For this reason, I would not recommend this volume as a textbook for beginners in networking. In compiling it, Loshin collected a complete set of related Internet standards and has created an extensive index, which makes this volume suitable as a reference. Although its content can be downloaded over the Internet, this hardly affects its usefulness. Reading a specification document on-screen can be very tiring for the eyes and time-consuming, as references from one RFC to another require frequent switching of windows. Reading this volume is much easier, and its use of tabs printed at the edges of the pages proves extremely helpful.

This book covers essential material for developers of system software and network protocols, and it should interest application developers, networking professionals, and system administrators, who will gain a good understanding of how Internet services are implemented. Faculty and students in the field will also find this material essential for studying Internet protocols and developing new services.