In this all-new book review, we put The TCP/IP Guide: A Comprehensive Illustrated Internet Protocols Reference by Charles Kozierok to the test.

In this article, we review a book you should have in your library, but which you probably won't read until that one day when you really, really need it.

The TCP/IP Guide: A Comprehensive Illustrated Internet Protocols Reference
This is both an encyclopedic and comprehensible guide to the TCP/IP protocol suite that will appeal to newcomers and the seasoned professional. It details the core protocols that make TCP/IP internetworks function, and the most important classical TCP/IP applications.

Its personal, easy-going writing style lets anyone understand the dozens of protocols and technologies that run the Internet, with full coverage of PPP, ARP, IP, IPv6, IP NAT, IPSec, Mobile IP, ICMP, RIP, BGP, TCP, UDP, DNS, DHCP, SNMP, FTP, SMTP, NNTP, HTTP, Telnet and much more.

The author offers not only a detailed view of the TCP/IP protocol suite, but also describes networking fundamentals and the important OSI Reference Model.

DominoPower's evaluation
This book scared us. It's frickin' huge and, quite frankly, intimidating as heck. As a substitute for hand-weights, it's perfect. You could do one-arm curls with this and buff up. But is it useful? It is, when you need it. Otherwise it'll live on your shelf.

We recently had a weird networking problem and ran out of ideas. Finally, in desperation, we dug through the 1,600+ pages and found something that pointed us in the right direction, fixing the problem. You're not going to read this end-to-end, but it will serve as a good reference for your library. Every good Lotus Notes and Domino admin should have a copy just for that one day when your network's down and you're completely out of ideas.

The TCP/IP Guide: A Comprehensive Illustrated Internet Protocols Reference by Charles Kozierok, published by No Starch Press, is 1,616 pages and has a retail price of $89.95. We give The TCP/IP Guide: A Comprehensive Illustrated Internet Protocols Reference a rating of 4 out of 5.

OUR RATING: 4 of 5

Joe is a ZATZ associate editor. Prior to this job, he was customer support manager for the FileFlex database engine.