Exploring Networks

This page provides links to tutorials on a range of subjects concerned with networking. Computer networking is an increasingly important area. It is also extremely complex. Hopefully these links will provide a range of both interesting and useful information.

Local Area Networks

The Web66 Network Construction Set was designed to provide a resource to K12 educators in the States. It is one of a number of resources, all of which are written in a clear way for non-technical readers. This tutorial considers the basic components of a LAN and how to build a LAN and a WAN.

Lantronix, a vendor of networking equipment, has a number of tutorials available. These start by looking at networking basics, and move on to consideration of Fast Ethernet and Switching. Again the language is accessible, though there is clearly an underlying marketing objective. Also accessible from this site are a number of white papers offering a more in depth study of aspects of networking.

History

If you are at all interested in the history of networking, do have a look at Bob Metcalfe and David Boggs classic paper: "Ethernet: Distributed Packet Switching for Local Computer Networks".

John Naughton's book "A Brief History of the Future" describes the history of the development of the PC and computer networks. It is a very readable account. The associated web page is also worth visiting.

Protocols and things

The Internet Request For Comments (or RFC) documents are the written definitions of the protocols and policies of the Internet. An indexed list can be found here

IP addressing

Ethernet, Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet

Ethernet - Charles Spurgeon's excellent resource pages.

Gigabit Ethernet

Fast Networking

Frame Relay

FDDI tutorial