[lopsa-discuss] LOPSA Book Club - December: Time Management for System Administrators

[Randal L. Schwartz]

>>>>> "Esther" == Esther Filderman <mizmoose at gmail.com> writes:

Esther> I'm just waiting for someone to suggest, "The Story of Ping."

Ahh yes, LMAO at the amazon.com review (7849 of 8074 found it "helpful"):

    Using deft allegory, the authors have provided an insightful and
    intuitive explanation of one of Unix's most venerable networking
    utilities. Even more stunning is that they were clearly working
    with a very early beta of the program, as their book first
    appeared in 1933, years (decades!) before the operating system and
    network infrastructure were finalized.

    The book describes networking in terms even a child could
    understand, choosing to anthropomorphize the underlying packet
    structure. The ping packet is described as a duck, who, with other
    packets (more ducks), spends a certain period of time on the host
    machine (the wise-eyed boat). At the same time each day (I suspect
    this is scheduled under cron), the little packets (ducks) exit the
    host (boat) by way of a bridge (a bridge). From the bridge, the
    packets travel onto the internet (here embodied by the Yangtze
    River).

    The title character -- er, packet, is called Ping. Ping meanders
    around the river before being received by another host (another
    boat). He spends a brief time on the other boat, but eventually
    returns to his original host machine (the wise-eyed boat) somewhat
    the worse for wear.

    If you need a good, high-level overview of the ping utility, this
    is the book. I can't recommend it for most managers, as the
    technical aspects may be too overwhelming and the basic concepts
    too daunting.

    Problems With This Book

    As good as it is, The Story About Ping is not without its
    faults. There is no index, and though the ping(8) man pages cover
    the command line options well enough, some review of them seems to
    be in order. Likewise, in a book solely about Ping, I would have
    expected a more detailed overview of the ICMP packet structure.

    But even with these problems, The Story About Ping has earned a
    place on my bookshelf, right between Stevens' Advanced Programming
    in the Unix Environment, and my dog-eared copy of Dante's seminal
    work on MS Windows, Inferno. Who can read that passage on the
    Windows API ("Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous, So that by
    fixing on its depths my sight -- Nothing whatever I discerned
    therein."), without shaking their head with deep
    understanding. But I digress.

-- 
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
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