4.8 Summary

Planning is the first step in configuring TCP/IP. We began this chapter by deciding whether your network will connect to the Internet and exploring how that decision impacts the rest of your planning. We also looked at the basic information needed to configure a physical network: an IP address, a subnet mask, and a broadcast address. We discussed how to plan routing, which is essential for communicating between TCP/IP networks. We outlined the basic network services, starting with domain name service, and discussed file, print, and email servers. Finally, we looked at the different ways that this planning information is communicated from the network administrator to the system administrators and users.

In the chapters that follow, we put these plans into action, starting with the configuration of the network interface in Chapter 6. First, however, we will go inside the UNIX kernel to see how TCP/IP is built into the operating system.