Network Reference Information

Last Update: July 3, 2004, this page is no longer maintained

SLAC Computer Services (SCS) | Network Group | Computer Networking

Physical Layer

• International Cablemakers' Federation represents 70% of wire & cable manufacturers.
• Cat 6 introduction, how to buy the standard reference, Comparison between Cat5, Cat5e, Cat6, Cat7 Cables, what is this Category (Cat5 Cat 6) wire stuff about?
• Optical Networking Consortium provides the latest on super-speed networking and new prototypes such as a WDM test bed in Boston. See also The Shape of Light August 1998 for information on Wave Division Multiplexing
. See also the SURA Optical Cookbook,
• Siemon Co. Stockpile of Technical Papers on Cabling.
• BICSI Resource Library contains white papers on connecting hardware, installation, field te4sting, interference ans the ISO/IEC 11081 international premise wiring specification.
• LAN & Cabling Standards news site run by Scope Communications.
• Bluetooth, Microsoft Windows inclusion.
• Wireless LAN Alliance, 802.11 Wireless LANs, 802.11 Security 802.11b test equipment.

Network & Transport Layers

• ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode
• Ethernet 10, 100, 1000Mbps, auto-negotiation, Ethernet in First Mile (EFM) Alliance and IEEE 802.3ah Task Force, and also information from Cisco
• IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards
• MTUs, jumbograms etc.
• IPng Working Group and the 6bone.
• LAN Technology Scorecard details of all (well a huge list) networking technologies (all the Ethernets, FDDI, SONET, ATM, u. v. a.), cable type (inc. fibre), state of standard, product availability, followed up with a brief description of each one; then a list two ways round of which manufacturers are supporting which protocols.
• Random Early Detection (RED) queue management.
• SCI Scalable Coherent Interface
• Stanford Local Network Admins (LNAs) information.
• TCP performance tuning.
• Switch/Router/Bridge benchmarks from Scott Bradner at Harvard. Strategic Networks Online and the Tolly Group provide information on network device performance.

Network Services

DNS | File systems (AFS & DCE & Netware etc.) | Info retrieval tools | Management | Mail | Miscellaneous | Quality of Service | Video | Voice | X

• Directory/Naming Services
  • RFC 1541: DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. For in-depth technical information see Ralph Drom's page on DHCP. Also see the DHCP FAQ, and the original work on RFC 951: BOOTP. Also see NetReg: An Automated DHCP Registration System and Dealing with Public Ethernet Jacks, Switches, Gateways and Authentication. DHCP.org has a repository of DHCP basics including key RFCSs 2131 and 2132. There is a good (though dated 1998) FAQ. The code can be found at the Internet Consortium's site.
  • International Ad Hoc Committee" The IAHC is a coalition of participants from the broad Internet community, working to satisfy the requirement for enhancements to the Internet's global Domain Name System (DNS).
  • LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Services) FAQs, documentation and related standards.
  • X.500 White Pages (via ESnet Gateway),
  • X.400 domains by country,
• File Systems
  • Andrew File System (AFS):
    • Transarc Home Page
    • ESnet White Paper on AFS
    • The Performance of OSF DCE Distributed File System (DFS) at Cray Research, Inc. by Brian Gaffey
    • AFS Information from Stanford Consulting Resources
    • Stanford's Leland Distributed Computing Environmen (LDCE) based on AFS/Kerberos etc.
    • FAQ on AFS for PCs
  • CIFS Common Internet File System from Microsoft.
  • DCE
    • Web DCE.
    • DCE for the Mac
  • Netware for Stanford Local Network Admins (LNAs), notes on IPX, Novell's Netwire online services and Novell's Appware development tools archive including demos, visual AppBuilder files & archives of the Appware mailing list
  • Samba is a suite of programs which work together to allow clients to access Unix filespace and printers via the SMB (Session Message Block) protocol.
  • WebNFS based on Sun's NFS version 3.
• Information Retrieval Tools (Gopher, WWW ...), Gopher Jewels (traditional structure) and (searchable form) provide catalogs of information available in "gopherspace", with more than 1800 pointers to information organized by category, WAIS and WWW to WAIS interface. Surveys of Web Use from GA Tech.
• Management
  • A MIB for Managing Web Servers, also see RFC 2039.
  • WBEM (Web Based Enterprise Management Standards).
  • JMAPI (Java Management API).
  • ESnet Network Monitoring Task Force (NMTF)
  • Network management including product reviews, links to archives, FAQs, Books etc.
  • Network Management Resources.
  • Important RFCs and IETF Drafts:
    • RFC 1857: A Model for Common Operational Statistics and RFC1856: The Opstat Client-Server Model for Statistics
    • RFC 1700: Assigned numbers for UDP & TCP ports and Port Numbers.
    • Metrics for Internet settlements by Brian Carpenter of CERN proposes instituting an efficient system of inter-carrier settlements and outlines a set of metrics that could be considered for use in such settlements.
  • Simple Times SNMP Newsletter, Jan. 1998 IETF memo on SNMPv3, SNMPv3 web site, SNMP links
  • Tutorial on WAN monitoring at SLAC.
• Mail
  • A Beginners Guide to Effective Email Katlin Sherwood, University of Illinois. Provides: discussions about how E-mail differs from notes on paper; tips on layout and content; information about smileys and other guestures.
  • Tips for sending Email and Attachments, from Stanford Online Report.
  • Header analysis information can be obtained at the following sites:
    • Concentric Network's Violation and Abuse
    • Spam FAQ
  • IMAP general information source.
  • Internet Mail Consortium Here you'll find information about IMC, the text of all the major Internet mail standards, and other valuable information.
  • MIME types
  • Fight Spam on the Internet
• Miscellaneous
  • CORBA (Common Object Request Broker) site links to background documenst, conference & workshop info, details of current specs, and CORBA software demos.
  • Internet Relay Chat (IRC) FAQ.
  • Netiquette primer to proper and tasteful behavior on a net communications system
  • News a search form to enable you to search for news groups of interest to you.
• Quality of Service
  • Differentiated Service for the Internet. Charter and Description of Working Group. Internet Quality of Service Winter Quarter 2000 course given by Brian Carpenter at Northwestern University. Next Steps for the IP QoS Architecture. QBone Architecture. TF-TANT Differentiated Services testing.
• Video Conferencing for the Room and Desktop and Simon Gibb's Index to MultiMedia Information Sources
• Voice
  • Voice Cisco's U.S. Networkers '98 Presentations, provides good introductory material.
  • H323 Primer. For more information on H323 gatekeeperes, gateways and standards, see the H323 Center. Also for an in-depth look at the standards efforts behind H323, see the ITU web sitte.
  • RTP Overview kept by Henning Schulzrinne.
  • Voice-over-IP Services: The Sound Decision, from Data Communications, March 1998.
• X Windows System FAQs, CHEP94 paper on The Effects of X Window HEP Graphics Applications on ESnet, X Hardware & Software Support at FNAL.
• DECnet Phase IV Specs.

Security/Privacy/Decency/Freedom of Expression

• Security
  • Computing Security at SLAC
  • Remote Access Security
    • A White Paper on remote access security from Shiva.
    • An overview on RADIUS and links to various RFCs.
  • Virtual Private Networks
    • IPSec
    • Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP)
    • PPTP
  • Tutorial on IPSecurity (IPSec).
  • Network Firewalls and Firewall Q & A
  • NIST's Computer Security Resource Clearinghouse provides a variety of resources via the Web, including: network security updates; virus information; a library of security tools; links to other resources (e.g. CERT, CIAC, FIRST)
  • X Security talk given by Lionel Cons at the HEPiX meeting May-95, Prague
  • ESnet Authentication Task Force: Pilot Project Final Report and Recommendations, and Recommended Reading
  • AT&T's Internet Security FTP server, see in particular Steve Bellovin's paper on Security Problems in the TCP/IP Security Suite and Robert Morris' paper on A Weakness in the 4.3BSD Unix TCP/IP Software
  • Secure Sockets a freely available product that uses certificates and 40-bit RSA encryption in a layer just above TCPIP, to provide secure internet communications.
  • Collage Communications, Inc., Networking, Internet and Information Security Expertise
  • Digital Pathways a provider of security for remote and Internet access. their page includes book summaries, an on-line newsletter, summaries of white papers and references for articles in trade magazines, an index of frequently asked questions, and a list of resources (including CERT) and how to get in touch with them.
  • Security Resource Net provides accessd to information from remote access to protecting SQL databases.
• Privacy
  • Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
    • PGP specification, source code & binaries or the alt.security.pgp newsgroup, a WWW Home Page, a page on Cryptography, PGP, and Your Privacy, a FAQ and last but not least Documentation.
    • Two books on PGP are: Protect Yor Privacy by William Stallings and PGP by Simson Garfinkel.
    • The commercial software for PGP is available from ViaCrypt, 9033 N. 24th Ave., Suite 7, Phoenix, AZ 85021 602-944-0773. Mike Johnson has a FAQ on Where to Get PGP, and there are Instructions on how to obtain PGP from MIT. There is also a PGP Distribution Order Form.
    • Internat-Draft on PGP MIME Integration.
  • Cypherpunks home page were you can find links to PGP, remailers, rants, various crypto-tools, newspaper clippings, and a good deal of other things.
  • The comp.risks newsgroup is a useful source of information on privacy and security.
  • WWW keyservers at MIT and IBD.
  • ESnet PGP Public Keys Directory.
• Decency/Freedom of Expression
  • The Exon bill would make service providers criminally liable for any indecent, lewd or threatening content accessible over their systems. For a discussion of the bill see the Usenet newsgroups comp.org.eff.talk or comp.org.cpsr.talk.
  • Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) a civil liberties organization working to protect freedom of expression, privacy and access to on-line resources.
  • Sex, Censorship and the Internet and Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) Censorship Archive
  • Banned Books a list of books endangered by over-zealous book-banners, and links to other attempts to censor free speech.

Wide Area Networking (incl. Dial-up)

• Dial Up:
  • ISDN Integrated Services Digital Services
  • Modems
• DSL
• ADSL Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Lines also see the ADSL Forum Some Things to know about ADSL and Dan Kegel's ADSL Page. Also see Pacific Bell's Fastrack Service, the Telechoice Report on xDSL online, Network World's DSL Resources page, and DSL Sourcebook 2nd Edition - HTML Version. DSL service lookup, check bandwidth.
• ADSL Asymmetrical Digital
• Government
  Subscriber Lines also see the ADSL Forum GSA Post-FTS2000 Environment In href="http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~mmgibso/adsl.html">Some Things to know about ADSL andformation.
  • Proposal for the Continu Dan Kegel's ADSL Page. ed Interconnection of the Federal Agency Networks Dec 11 1995. Contains i Also see Pacific nformation on how ESnet etc. will connect to the Internet and in particular talks of the Bell's Fastrack Service, the FIXes and MAEs.
  Telechoice Report
  on xDSL online,
Network World's
• List of Internet Service Providers (ISPs)< DSL Resources page, and /a>.
• PC World's list of ISPs .
• Overview of the Europe DSL Sourcebook 2nd Edition - HTML Version.an Internet by Jon Crowcroft, Autumn 1995.
• Telecommunications Library sponsored by Wiltel, contains back issues of Long Distance Digest and recent postings to Telecom Digest, up to the minute informtaion on regulations analysis from Insight Research, working papers from the RITIM, and areference.html glossary of terms.
• Telecomm Tariffs in the US, Canada, Europe and the Pacific Rim.
• Telecommuting
  • Smart Valley Telecommuting Guide a full online book that guides managers through the whys, wherefors, obstacles and solutions of telecommuting.
  • Telecommuting, Teleworking & Alternative Officing with a FAQ on telecommuting from manager and employee perspectives.
  • Telecommute America! links to dozens of other sites dealing with telecommuting.
• Convert time between 2 timezones or Convert time to GMT

Some Network Information Sources

• Clearing House for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval (CNIDR)
• ConneXions The Interoperability Report tracks current and emerging standards and technologies within the computer and communications industry
• Electronic Publishing Network provides down-to-earth tips and tricks for managing your computer network.
• ESnet Information Server: network usage statistics, the ESnet Community database: short list sorted by last name with phone & email address, long list sorted by name with address,phone, fax, email, committee status, long list sorted by committee, short list sorted by institution, and the ESnet Steering Committee (ESSC)
• Data Communications Magazine's list of the hottest Web sites for corporate networkers, ordered by technology.
• Internet Monthly Report.
• Federal Internetworking Requirements Panel (FIRP) Report with links to GOSIP, IGOSS and GNMP reports.
• Global Network Navigator (O'Reilly Associates) GNN Discussion Forum Archives
• IBM's Networking Acivities contains networking news, networking software & hardware, networking services and resources
• IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking
• IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) is the protocol engineering and development arm of the Internet.
• K-12 Education: Consortium for School Networking and in ASCII text and Postscript
• Internet Network Information Centers (NICs) at: NSFnet or the RIPE NCC Network Informmation Center for the European region, Merit, the InterNIC's InfoGuide or its Directory and Database Services or Matrix Information and Directory Services (MIDS) with lots of maps, graphs & charts. The Internet Society is the International Organization for the coordination and cooperation of the Internet, The Internet Index with statistics & facts about the Internet, and the Network Wizards Internet Domain Survey.
• NetSizer provides statitics on the size of the Interent.
• NSF Science & Technology Information System
• OSF/DCE Information
• Pocket Network Management Survival Guide attempts to demystify commonly encountered network management terms and concepts.
• SPEC (Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation) was formed in 1988 to establish, maintain, and endorse a standardized set of relevant benchmarks and metrics for performance evaluation of modern computer systems.
• Standards
  • The Document Center is a hard copy document delivery service specializing in government and industry specifications and standards including ANSI, EIA, IEEE, ISO.
  • IEEE Home Page, with links to the IEEE Standards Process Automation System
  • IETF (internet Engineering Task Force) documents, see also the Internet Technical Documents.
  • Standards Bodies.
  • DOD ITSI Standards Document Library provides a central on-line source for policies,guidance, standards, and other references.
• Stanford University
  • Stanford University Campus Networks & Communications Services
  • Stanford's Netinfo directory
• Telegeography, Inc. provides Internet information in a geographic fashion. Much of the information is for sale only.
• UPTURN (Umbrella Proposal for Telematics for Users and Research Networks) a major pan-European project in the National Information Infrastructure (NII) vein.

You may also find the newsgroups, comp.dcom.lans.ethernet and comp.dcom.telecom.tech to be of interest if you are technically minded. Thre are also a lot of computing resources available via http://www.onlinecomputersciencedegree.com/, a Glossary of Internet terms Patrick Crispen's Internet RoadMap workshop with 27 progressive lessons, and the WWW Virtual Library's Networking Information page. Ipsilon has created an IP Library with links and information on IP standards, the IETF, IPng, news etc.

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