Internetworking with TCP/IP, Volume III describes the fundamental concepts of client-server computing used to build all distributed computing systems, and presents an in-depth guide to the Posix sockets standard utilized by Linux and other operating systems. Dr. Douglas E. Comer compares leading server designs, and describes the key tools and techniques used to build clients and servers, including Remote Procedure Call (RPC). The book contains examples of running programs that illustrate each approach. Comer introduces the client-server model and its software design implications; the role of concurrent processing and threads; the Socket API, and differences that impact Linux programmers. Understand the key algorithms and issues associated with client and server software design; then review three leading approaches: iterative, connectionless servers (UPD); and both iterative and concurrent connection-oriented servers (TCP). The book contains extensive coverage of threading, including a new chapter on using threads for concurrency; as well as coverage of single-threaded and multi-threaded concurrent servers. Comer introduces multi-protocol and multi-service services; reviews client concurrency; tunneling at the transport and application levels; and external data representation (XDR). He reviews RPC, distributed program generation, NFS concepts and protocol; Telnet; streaming media transport; and finally, techniques for avoiding deadlock and starvation in client-server systems. For everyone who wants to master TCP/IP and understand how the Internet works.
About the Author: DR. DOUGLAS COMER is an internationally recognized expert on TCP/IP protocols and the Internet. One of the researchers who contributed to the Internet as it was being formed in the late 1970s and 1980s; he was a member of the Internet Architecture Board, the group responsible for guiding the Internet's development. He was also chairman of the CSNET technical committee and a member of the CSNET executive committee.
Comer consults for companies on the design and implementation of networks, and gives professional seminars on TCP/IP and internetworking to both technical and nontechnical audiences around the world. His operating system, Xinu, and implementation of TCP/IP protocols are documented in his books, and used in commercial products.
Comer is a professor of computer science at Purdue University, where he teaches courses and does research on computer networking, internetworking, and operating systems. In addition to writing a series of best-selling technical books, he serves as the North American editor of the journal Software -- Practice and Experience. Comer is a Fellow of the ACM.
Additional information can be found at: www.cs.purdue.edu/people/comer
DAVID STEVENS received his BS (1985) and MS (1993) in Computer Science from Purdue University. He has been a UNIX systems programmer working primarily on BSD UNIX kernels since 1983. He has done implementations of most of the Internet Protocol Suite and co-authored several Computer Science textbooks with Dr. Comer. His areas of professional interest are operating systems, computer networking, and large-scale software systems design.
In recent years, Stevens has worked in the area of scalable networking on high-performance multiprocessor systems for Sequent Computer Systems and the IBM Corporation. He is a member of the ACM and IEEE.
