Effective TCP/IP Programming: 44 Tips to Improve Your Network Programs

This book is packaged as a series of 44 tips for better TCP/IP programs, but it actually does much more. Early sections review the basics of the TCP, UDP and IP protocols, along with related standards. A winning feature here is the author's care to distinguish between the well-known BSD (for Unix) and Winsock (for Windows) versions of sockets. (By using macros and "skeleton" programs, his sample C code will run easily on either implementation.)

Besides offering nuts-and-bolts programming advice and plenty of hints for better performance, Snader also discusses how IP works under the hood. Standout sections here include a discussion of the pitfalls of scaling a stand-alone or LAN TCP/IP application to the Internet, as well as what a "reliable" protocol like TCP really means. He shows you how to handle misbehaving servers and clients, and how to use multiple sockets effectively, and he offers several useful tips for optimizing data streamed across the wire. Although he doesn't mention Java here (which offers strong socket support on its own), the author does provide Perl examples that work with sockets in order to get you started with sockets used within scripting languages.

Because IP is the protocol of choice for the Internet, more and more of us are faced with becoming socket-programming experts in a hurry. In all, Effective TCP/IP Programming offers a good mix of basic and advanced tips on today's IP and related protocols. It's a valuable resource for any developer who programs for the Internet and wants to write better code using sockets. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: TCP/IP overview and programming tips, Berkeley Socket Distribution (BSD) vs. Winsock/Windows socket implementation issues, connected and connectionless protocols, network-programming frameworks, UDP vs. TCP, reliable protocols, network programming for single workstations, LANs and WANs; event-driven programming, improving write operations, IP packet layout, byte ordering issues, the Nagle and delayed ACK algorithms, using network utilities: inetd, tcpmux, tcpdump, traceroute, ttcp, and netstat; and resources and hints for improving network-programming skills.

Product Description
Programming in TCP/IP can seem deceptively simple. Nonetheless, many network programmers recognize that their applications could be much more robust. Effective TCP/IP Programming is designed to boost programmers to a higher level of competence by focusing on the protocol suite's more subtle features and techniques. It gives you the know-how you need to produce highly effective TCP/IP programs.

In forty-four concise, self-contained lessons, this book offers experience-based tips, practices, and rules of thumb for learning high-performance TCP/IP programming techniques. Moreover, it shows you how to avoid many of TCP/IP's most common trouble spots.

Effective TCP/IP Programming offers valuable advice on such topics as:

Exploring IP addressing, subnets, and CIDR Preferring the sockets interface over XTI/TLI Using two TCP connections Making your applications event-driven Using one large write instead of multiple small writes Avoiding data copying Understanding what TCP reliability really means Recognizing the effects of buffer sizes Using tcpdump, traceroute, netstat, and ping effectively

Numerous examples demonstrate essential ideas and concepts. Skeleton code and a library of common functions allow you to write applications without having to worry about routine chores.

Through individual tips and explanations, you will acquire an overall understanding of TCP/IP's inner workings and the practical knowledge needed to put it to work. Using Effective TCP/IP Programming, you'll speed through the learning process and quickly achieve the programming capabilities of a seasoned pro.

Overall the best book buy...most of the effective series have been good.


A MUST HAVE BOOK   September 27, 2001
Ted Tash (Phoenix, AZ United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

This book provides an excellent insight into TCP/IP programming. The concepts are presented in a system independent manner as much as possible. The focus of the book is to teach TCP/IP programming concepts and not to teach how to program in WINDOWS, so readers who are not competent in Windows programming may need another reference to help them out there. I have not found another book that so clearly outlines the considerations that must be made in order to design an effective and robust TCP/IP interface. A list of some of the points that I found very helpful are:
1) Why to use TCP instead of UDP except for very specific circumstances.
2) TCP is a STREAM protocol with no inherent notion of message or message boundary.
3) Why to combine data into larger writes instead of many small writes.
4) A discussion of avoiding movement of data with Shared Memory.


A must have book for network programmers   July 18, 2000
Uri Raz (Israel)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

This book is a must book for newsockets applications writers. The book gives the basics of TCP/IP for programmers, rather than from an academical point of view, giving effective tips, techniques, and whole programs in C to assist network programmers in writing solid networking programs.


Great Help!   March 1, 2002
W. J. Vovil (Sydney, NSW, Australia)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

I have just completed a major corporate network programming application. Now I am trying to iron out those network problems you only get when large volumes of REAL data start coming through your application.

This book has helped me solve all problems so far. It has also allowed me to make my applications more error tolerant and robust, particularly when erroneous data is allowed through to my apps.

I NOW have some really great tools in my network programming armory thanks to this book. It has also removed any uncertanties in my mind about TCP/IP. Great book, get it, read it, apply it!


Excellent book for intermediate Network Programmer   June 24, 2002
Park Sang Hee (Seoul, Republic of Korea)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Every book has target, and that's important for rating books.
As an intermediate programmer(my major was Computer Science but I don't have much experience in real field yet. I admit it.), this book was a great help to me. I have read Mr.Comer's "Internetworking with TCP/IP" and Mr.Steven's "Unix Network Programming". Definitely, those books are good references. But usually, readers of those big books can miss some important points.
While reading this book, I got back to those books and re-read many pages which I have missed their real meaning. So, that's the virtue of this book. This book is quite concise and clear about Network features(especially TCP/IP) which can be easily overlooked.

Author said he would deal with both UNIX(LINUX) and Windows platform, but he didn't follow his promise well. This book is quite concentrated for Unix, but that's not so serious defect. A great deal of this book's technics are quite helpful regardless which platform you work.