| This is a book about running the IPv6 protocol in heterogeneous environments. It will tell you how to enable the protocol on Windows, MacOS, FreeBSD, Linux, and Cisco routers, and, up to a point, on Juniper routers. The intent behind the book is to present a clear view of the aspects to IPv6 that are of interest to those who’ll be running and administrating the protocol, not to bombard the reader with unnecessary details. This means that the book covers the IPv6 specifications to the degree necessary to successfully operate an IPv6 network; for a detailed discussion of the IPv6 protocol itself, see IPv6 Essentials by Silvia Hagen (O’Reilly & Associates, 2002) or IPv6: The New Internet Protocol (Second Edition) by Christian Huitema (Prentice Hall, 1998). Alternatively, you can get this information straight from the horse’s mouth by reading the relevant Request For Comment documents that specify the IPv6 standards. See Appendix A for a list of IPv6-related RFCs and how to obtain RFCs.
This book is a little different from most technical books. Rather than explain IPv6 as a more or less self-contained technology, most chapters deal with the impact that IPv6 has on a particular aspect of IP networking, such as configuring hosts (Chapter 2), routing (Chapter 4), the DNS (Chapter 5), applications (Chapter 6), security (Chapter 9), and providing transit services if you’re an ISP (Chapter 11). All these chapters address two audiences: people who already know the chapter’s subject and just need to know what’s different in IPv6, and people who have some TCP/IP background but aren’t all that familiar with the subject discussed in the chapter, let alone with how it relates to IPv6. So all these chapters have some background information that experts already know, but the chapters quickly proceed into more complex territory, so non-experts may find it hard to follow the entire chapter.
Many chapters build on information from earlier chapters, so reading the book from the beginning to the end is not a bad idea. However, there are frequent pointers to other chapters, so don’t be afraid to start in the middle of the book if that’s your thing. |