Skip to Main Content
Linux in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition
book

Linux in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition

by Ellen Siever, Stephen Figgins, Aaron Weber
June 2003
Beginner to intermediate content levelBeginner to intermediate
944 pages
43h 1m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Linux in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition

Overview of Networking

Networks connect computers so that the different systems can share information. For users and system administrators, Unix systems have traditionally provided a set of simple but valuable network services that let you check whether systems are running, refer to files residing on remote systems, communicate via electronic mail, and so on.

For most commands to work over a network, each system must be continuously running a server process in the background, silently waiting to handle the user’s request. This kind of process is called a daemon . Common examples, on which you rely for the most basic functions of your Linux system, are named (which translates between numeric IP addresses and more human-readable alphanumeric names), lpd (which sends documents to a printer, possibly over a network), and ftpd (which allows you to connect to another machine via ftp).

Most Unix networking commands are based on Internet protocols. These are standardized ways of communicating across a network on hierarchical layers. The protocols range from addressing and packet routing at a relatively low layer to finding users and executing user commands at a higher layer.

The basic user commands that most systems support over Internet protocols are generally called TCP/IP commands, named after the two most common protocols. You can use all of these commands to communicate with other Unix systems besides Linux systems. Many can also be used to communicate with non-Unix systems, as a ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Ellen Siever, Stephen Figgins, Robert Love, Arnold Robbins
Linux in Action

Linux in Action

David Clinton
Hands-On System Programming with Linux

Hands-On System Programming with Linux

Kaiwan N. Billimoria, Tigran Aivazian
Embedded Linux for Developers

Embedded Linux for Developers

Alexandru Vaduva, Alex González, Chris Simmonds

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596004826