This document is organized top-down. The first sections include informative material, and it can be skipped if you are not interested; what follows is a generic discussion of networking issues, and you must ensure you understand this before proceeding to more specific parts. The ``technology specific'' information is grouped into three main sections: Ethernet and IP-related information, technologies pertaining to widespread PC hardware, and seldom-used technologies.
The suggested path through this document is as follows:
These sections apply to almost every technology described in subsequent sections, and they are very important for you to understand. I expect many of the readers will be confident with this material.
You should know how your network is (or will be) designed, and you should also be familiar with exactly what hardware and technology types you will be implementing.
This section describes basic Ethernet configurations, and it describes the various features that Linux offers for IP networking (ie: firewalling, advanced routing, etc).
This section describes the widespread technologies used on personal workstations (ie: PLIP, PPP, SLIP, and ISDN).
Your needs may differ from IP and/or other common hardware This final section covers details specific to both non-IP protocols and to peculiar communication hardware.
You should actually try to configure your network. Take careful note of any existing problems
If you experience problems that this document does not help you to resolve, then you should refer to the sections related to "Help" and "Where to report bugs".
Networking is fun! Enjoy it!