Volume 3 of TCP/IP Illustrated is an extension of volumes one and two. More than half of it deals with TCP for Transactions (T/TCP), covering both the protocol, in a similar fashion to volume one, and its implementation, as in volume two. This is followed by chapters on HTTP and NNTP and a chapter titled "Packets Found on an HTTP Server". (This is as much an analysis of real-life TCP performance as anything else, and contains such things as a statistical breakdown of client options and behaviour — apparently as many as 10% of connecting clients used an initial sequence number of 0 for all connections!) The volume closes with seventy pages on the implementation of the Unix domain protocols.

If you aren't interested in T/TCP or the UNIX domain protocols then it probably isn't worth buying this volume, but it might be worth borrowing a copy for a look at the other material, which will be of wider interest.

May 1996

External links:

- buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Related reviews:

- W. Richard Stevens - TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols
- W. Richard Stevens - TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2: The Implementation
- books about networking
- books published by Addison-Wesley