Abstract
This chapter provides a general overview of networking concepts. The chapter presents a brief description of networks and protocols to see how an application programming interface (API) for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol fits in. A protocol is an agreement about the packets exchanged by communicating programs and what they mean. A protocol tells how packets are structured— for example, where the destination information is located in the packet and how big it is, as well as how the information is to be interpreted. The application programs running on hosts are really the users of the network. Routers are machines whose job is to relay, or forward, information from one communication channel to another. They may run programs but typically do not run application programs. Implementing a useful network requires that a large number of different problems be solved. To keep things manageable and modular, different protocols are designed to solve different sets of problems. TCP/IP is one such collection of solutions, sometimes called a protocol suite. It happens to be the suite of protocols used in the Internet, but it can be used in stand-alone private networks as well.
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