running ipv6
Most people have heard of IPv6. Some of those people understand the basics of it and a few even understand how to use it. IPv6 is that inevitable hurdle we're eventually going to have to jump and Running IPv6 gives us a decent overview on making that leap.
The book covers a ton of network-related topics: from addressing and routing, to tunneling, to DNS, and security. Software-wise, all the bases are covered, too: Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, and Cisco. It's all packaged up into a nice little book with the name of an author I couldn't pronounce for the life of me (Iljitsch van Beijnum).
OK, lets get the bad part out of the way now: IPv6 addresses might cause aneurysms. Seriously. They're really big and complicated and they get chopped up into a bunch of different spaces and there's (sometimes) even shortcuts for writing them. Argh! To make the paradigm shift from IPv4 to IPv6 addresses, I need my hand held. Take 20 or 30 or 40 pages if you need to. Have lots of big easy pictures. Something! Because, unfortunately, the description in this book just wasn't enough for me. Maybe I was just being dense, but I couldn't grok the complete addressing scheme for the life of me.
Now that's out of the way, we can move on to the good parts of the book. Simple addressing with IPv6 is solid here. All major Operating Systems (mentioned earlier) are covered. Need to make an IPv6 through IPv4 tunnel? Covered (again, with all OS's). Routing? Check. Routing Protocols? RIP, OSPF, BGP. DNS? Yep. DHCP? Yep. Applications? How's Apache, FTP, Telnet, and SSH sound? (Side note, here's a brain twister: If we're going to have an ungodly number of IP addresses with IPv6, will we still need Virtual Hosting with Apache?) Finally, there's a ton of stuff on security, looking at the innards of an IPv6 packet, and making the transition to IPv6.
Almost anything you can think of that relates to IP is covered in this little 250 page book. With that kind of topic-to-page ratio, it's a given that this is just meant to be an overview to IPv6 (I'd say a little more than getting your feet wet and right before the complete dive). All the information is complete and detailed -- Iljitsch really did a ton of research for this book! The only problem I had was the initial grasp of the IPv6 addressing scheme. And again, maybe I'm being an idiot, but it just didn't come to me with this book. In the end, I'll give Running IPv6 a 7 out of 10.
