“Editor’s Note: This piece is written for Mandrake Linux. The
concepts provided here are good for all distributions of Linux, but
please be sure to check your own distribution for any minor
changes.”
“There is an ocean of protocols in the networking world.
However, the growing popularity of the Internet has made many of
the proprietary protocols dry up. There are still some that
remain, such as Novell’s IPX/SPX or Windows’ NetBEUI, but both
Microsoft and Novell have, with the latest incarnations of their
networking schemes, adopted the Internet protocol, TCP/IP as their
standard. Linux, like Unix before it, supports TCP/IP inherently as
it was developed on the platform. To this end, the protocol of
focus in this article will be TCP/IP. Incidentally, it is also the
protocol with the most applications written specifically for
it.”
“With the launch of Sputnik by the Russians in 1956, the United
States government decided that it would be prudent to remain
significantly more technologically advanced than their enemies. The
Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) was formed and
embarked on creating a re-routable network impervious to nuclear
attack. Called ARPAnet, it grew slowly for years and was scheduled
to be abandoned for a newer network in the early 1980’s. The
National Science Foundation stepped in to take over administration
and the Internet was born. Over a decade passed before it became
the easy babysitter and corporate advertising mainstay that it is
today. Its standards had been set. The standard protocol, of
course, became TCP/IP.”