Computer Networking: A Top Down Approach Featuring The Internet

by James F. Kurose, Keith W. Ross

Black and White Economy Edition

Genres: Computer Science, Programming, Technology, Nonfiction, Textbooks, Technical, Reference

813 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

Reviews

[YouKneeK · Rating 4 out of 5]

This textbook was required reading for a Computer Networking course. As far as college textbooks go, it was pretty good. I learned the material from it that I needed to learn. The textbook was well-organized, and it was easy to understand. It had quite a few analogies and real-world examples that aided in understanding.

For me, this textbook was a pretty dry read and I sometimes had trouble pushing through the weekly reading assignments. However, networks are not an aspect of Computer Science that I’m particularly interested in, so this was to be expected. I usually found the beginning of each chapter interesting, but my interest tapered off about halfway through and the rest was a chore to get through. However, I did learn a lot about how networks work. I may not retain all of the nitty-gritty details over the long term, but I expect the main concepts to stick with me.

I think one of the best parts of this textbook were the Wireshark labs at the companion website, which my professor used for some of our assignments. I had fun learning how to “sniff packets”, and I liked seeing the protocols in action for myself using real, live information being passed to and from my own personal network.

Aside from my subjective complaint about the dryness of the material, my only other real complaint is in regard to the acronyms. There were an amazing number of acronyms, and many of them were not in the index so it could be difficult to find the original definitions again. Once an acronym was defined once, it was not defined again – at least not within the chapter in which it was introduced. (The chapters were 70-100 pages long.) A glossary of acronyms in the back of the book would have really helped. To any future readers of this textbook, I recommend making a note of each acronym you encounter and at least noting the page # where it was first introduced in case you need to reference its definition again.

[Oscar · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was such a boring book. So much so that I would discourage anyone from picking ip up (or studying Computer Networking for that matter). First let me point out the characteristics that I liked most, so that I won't come across as a nuisance, and that prevented me from giving a lower rating


- At anyone's reach
- Very comprehensive prose, as far as the topics that the authors chose to cover are concerned (indeed, I felt much was left over)

Now comes my critique: this book feels aimed at a five-year old audience! Paragraphs feel like a watered-down, wordy mass of text -- this gives clarity, but is boring as hell to read! I expected (if not demanded from a Computer Science course) more formalism, technical sophistication than what I got from two authors afraid of overwhelming their audience. Computer networking basics are covered satisfactorily, but the watered-down, romanticized prose prevented the text from achieving a thicker conceptual density; a book style more appropriate for students with an interest in industry-related applications than on insight and true understanding. I once had a talk with a networking tutor at my university, and he told me part of his work dealt with Markov's chains and probabilistic modeling; I read many of the end-of-chapter interviews, and the interviewees often remarked a conceptually richer footing for computer networking that this book expressed. Why wasn't any of all this covered in this text?

Where did the cool stuff go? OK, I got a good grasp on the ISO/OSI stack -- up from HTTP, e-mail systems, P2P networks down to TCP congestion and flow control mechanisms, link-layer devices and LANs and basic network security notions (that was probably the part I liked most) but in the end I felt I was only acquiring passive knowledge with no reasoning involved. Is that a problem with this particular book? With computer networking? Worse yet, for computer science courses in general?

Additional flaws

- Ridiculously over-priced hard-cover copy (I borrowed one from the library)
- No solutions for end-of-chapter exercises (not even wireshark)
- Questionably ugly top-down approach. Makes one feel like applications deserve more attention than theoretical understanding

[Ivan Ivanov · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've picked up this book because I wanted to improve my knowledge about computer networks.

I think that the book is very approachable, the authors are using very good analogies in some places to make the material easier to understand. The main part of the book tries to cover the Application Layer, Transport layer, Network layer and Link layer. Some things(e.g. protocols) in the book are explained very well, while others are just mentioned. I find this normal because computer networking is an interdisciplinary field and the authors had to pick which topics to focus on if they wanted to write a <1000 pages book (The references section in the book is 40 pages).

In the end I learnt a lot from this book(I could have learnt even more if I were to do all of the exercises at the end of each chapter) and even though it took me a lot of time to read I am glad that I did it.

[Zvezdi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice and understandable. Makes you excited about the Internet. I enjoy reading the interviews featured in every chapter (like the one with Marc Andreessen included in the sixth edition).

[Emily Frostad · Rating 4 out of 5]

literally read cover to cover for my exam. great explanations and examples, wish I could’ve read it at a more leisure pace

[Thang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to learn about internet, a marvelous invention. It took more than 20 years for this layer 0 to find the killer use case - the Web.

For the layer 1, we are still early.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is pretty long and verbose (but digestible / accessible), but remember, you have access to his ~2022 YouTube videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/@JimKurose
Some nice YouTube people even curated some pretty organized custom Playlists.

Some textbook sections are missing from the video series, but there is this channel that can fill in the gaps - also a PhD lecturer: https://www.youtube.com/@EpicNetworks

He explains everything brilliantly, the textbook will supplement details if certain concepts elude you from the video. I think this is one of the authoritative textbooks on the topic. I enjoyed it. Very affable instructor - very passionate, knowledgeable, and upbeat about the topic.

Thanks!

[Karel Baloun · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Re 7th edition)

The authors successfully make the deep details of networking understandable and even easy to read.

Love the “a day in the life of a webpage request”, which listed the 24 exact detailed steps that a packet takes between an ethernet card, a Web server and it’s returned. (p501-505)

Chapter 8 on security leaves a lot to be desired… It’s really about how security is designed to ideally function, but omits all the real world problems. Similarly the last chapters on mobile and multimedia feel incomplete and rushed.

[Shayan aminnjad · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to learn how computer networks work, I think this is a wonderful introduction! I enjoyed every single page of the book. and the book is not just a great textbook about computer networks, but also a great example of how teaching should be! You could always feel the tutors by your side, you could feel they have been in your place and understand your confusion and misunderstandings. So if you need a book to learn how to teach, I think this is a great example of it too.

[Anjum Haz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read some chapters from this book for my networking course. The writers explained the nuts and bolts of networking in such interesting way, I felt like I was reading a story! Thanks to them for explaining the hard topics so easily that we, students clung to the textbook..

[Juul Christiaens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heel droog en zwaar om allemaal front-to-back te lezen, maar wel heel duidelijk. Een goeie intro + deep dive in wat networking eigenlijk is en welke protocollen er allemaal bestaan. Er zou wel een overzichtstabel mogen bestaan van alle belangrijke begrippen (afkortingen etc...) neem dus zeker notities als je dit leest

[Liz Heym · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been following me around for months like a looming specter, except the terror is just 700 pages of highly technical writing. Amazing book, don't get me wrong! It provides just about as much color as one can to the topic of computer networking, but god do I feel freed now.

[CweenCarolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best networks book! So good. So much content almost too much but the information was super useful and the pictures were great! Thank you kurose!

[Sameer Sampangi · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book that teaches networking top down as the name suggests. Starts with Application Layer and walks you down all the way to the PHY layer. Talks about TCP in and out and covers concepts like MSS, Fragmentation at L3. LAN, VLANS and how L2 came into existence, from hubs having CSMA/CD to Switches where there are no collisions. Covers WiFi later in the later part of the book explaining beautifully the concepts of SSID, BSSID and signal strengths. Later, it dwelves into security teaches basics of cryptography.

An amazing and a must read book for anyone who wants to get into networking. A must read.

One of those book that you read, reread and read again to reread.

[Matthew Farah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A phenomenal read for anyone looking to learn the ins and outs of computer networking. As a student tying to kill some time, I picked up this book to challenge the little I knew in the way of networking, but having finished it, I can say I hardly ever found its contents challenging at all (In a good way). Although comprehensive and detailed, the book builds upon simple ideas accompanied by everyday examples to create an intuitive understanding of modern computer networking in both its academic and applied settings. The book’s questions further reinforce both theory and practice, with test-your-knowledge style questions accompanied by some cool wireshark labs which have the added benefit of making you feel like the le epic hacker you always dreamed of. Some questions and references, as expected with old-ish textbooks, lead to now defunct links, but for the most part, not a big deal.
Additionally the book is meticulous, very meticulous, and I would say overly so except perhaps to the most dedicated of networking enthusiasts. In fairness, there’s only so much someone can do to make memorizing packet headers fun, but for the average person like myself I would say that certain sections of the book are best served as a good reference rather than as a thorough read. Don’t get me wrong though, the book’s delivery is, for the most part, surprisingly funny and witty. It even shames me to admit to say I’ve laughed at a couple of the jokes they sprinkle throughout the text which I really didn’t expect going into this.
Overall, for the average undergraduate student, this book is a great walkthrough/resource for anyone looking to get a real grasp on the why’s and how’s of the internet, and I would strongly recommend it for this purpose.

[Marcin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great form of an introduction to the networking field, perhaps a little too simplified for an IT student, but overtly simplistic enough for someone embarking on the journey down the bit-stream. This might be the books strength, since the harder topics are easily described and easier do not need any real-life translations. The book follows the idea of top-down approach through both ranges of topics discussed and the language used, as the abstraction level is further abstracted to real-life terminology anyone can grasp fast and easily. The lower we get, the deeper in to the secrets of the network and the more technical stuff is discussed. Still, the information is easy to follow since one already must have easily understood the previous topics. Yet if you're into more technical stuff or network management geeky specification stuff this just isn't for you. If you're only a beginner, these almost 780 insight pages may allow you to understand the ideas and cope with most of the tasks network-related. After all, this book makes for a basis of a university/college course.

[Dmitriy Shilin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, it was very long reading. It took me about a year to read it.
There are a lot of information about the network today and it is very
difficult to grab all main ideas from the various domains.

I would say that I like first 5 chapters. They cover all important details
from the application layer till the Ethernet frames. After 5 fundamental
chapters authors offer us more domain-specific information. These chapters are
very basic and require a lot of additional reading.

As a result if your goal is to grab the main fundamental concepts you will
be OK with first 5 chapters.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very clear and thorough overview of computer networking. Covers the OSI model of networking, as well as the protocols used in each layer. After reading this, I feel that I understand how all modern devices communicate and share data with each other. Very easy to read, even for a beginner, but also extremely thorough. The problems at the end of each chapter were also very good, and helped cement the understanding gained from the text.

[Roberto! · Rating 1 out of 5]

Only an idiot would read this book.

[Jui Shirvalkar Chandurkar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best. Book. Ever.

[Zhuzi_20 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stupid Book.
The book contains a large number of the author's subjective arguments and omits important content, while the first chapter devotes extensive space to unimportant details.
It is also riddled with errors and filled with lengthy, baseless discussions that are completely unfounded.

For example, in Chapter 1, it says that the propagation time of a frame is unrelated to the number of links—that is, it's independent of the distance between the endpoints. According to the algorithm in the book, the transmission rate of the circuit is calculated as the number of frames transmitted per second multiplied by the number of bits per timeslot in each frame. However, the book doesn't specify whether "the number of frames transmitted per second" refers to the number of frames sent per second or the number of frames in transit between the two endpoints per second. If it refers to the number of frames sent per second, then indeed it has nothing to do with distance, since that’s determined when the connection is established between the two endpoints. But if propagation time is said to be independent of distance, does that mean the frame reaches the other endpoint instantly upon being sent, without being affected by the physical distance at all? That’s the only way I can interpret it.

This book also says: "When one end system has data to send to another end system, the sending end system segments the data and adds header bytes to each segment. The resulting packages of information, known as packets in the jargon of computer networks, are then sent through the network to the destination end system, where they are reassembled into the original data."

This statement is not accurate — bytes are not only added at the header. If the author were being more precise, they should have referred to it as a data segment, since a data segment can refer to the final data format after bytes have been added, before entering the Internet.

[Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good and easy read about the way computer networks operate from the Top-Down. It explains it in a way that's both relatable and easy to understand. Found it a bit dry in some parts due to how long each chapter is and my main gripe is the lack of more practical examples. My main field isn't networks so I'm not sure if Network Engineers deal with this level of theoretical stuff, such as connecting the router and letting it do the heavy lifting.
I feel a bit disappointed because I expected lots of coding exercises and/or circuit immersion to fully understand network protocols from the fundamentals but maybe the book leans more towards a general audience with no background that wants to get a good idea of what networks are. I enjoyed the discussion about network protocols and particularly the cryptography exercises but wish we saw more interactive ways to build the protocol or modify the data.
Overall good experience, now to try with more advanced books to see the protocols on a more technical scale.

[Rishabh Kumar · Rating 2 out of 5]

A better one would have been the bottom up approach. In the beginning of the book it starts to explain the concept of routing and the interconnection of the networks. If a reader has no prior knowledge about networks then he will be scratching his head. In my case i did not even know the actual difference between the router and the switch, where does routing actually takes place, on which layer, which addressing is used. The book directly jumps into the application layer without even giving the introduction of the different layers, brief introduction of them, data forms such as frame, datagram, segment on different layers.

[Natheer Gharaibeh]

It's an interesting book about Computer Networking. in my opinion starting from the Application layer backward to the lowest level layers (presentation, Session, etc.) is an impressive and useful approach.
Maybe if you begin from the lowest layers. You will be lost with many boring details!
In General, Computer Science is full of details and maybe boring for many people, but getting into it with a semantic approach will make it more interesting and give it meaning.
I am not against the bottom-up approach, but it must be driven by practice and examples, without doing that it will be boring and time-wasting!

[Dimos Raptis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first time I read parts of this book was during my undergraduate studies. I decided to re-read after almost 10 years (a later version of it) and I didn't regret it. Even though I had extensive hands-on experience with computer networking since the first read, I still got to learn new things from the book and gain new insights. The only reason my rating is a 4-star and not a 5-star is because I felt the book tried to cover some areas (e.g. physical layer, multimedia & mobile networking) very superficially for the sake of completeness leaving the reader confused and needing to do more reading to understand what the book was talking about.

[Saman Nourkhalaj · Rating 3 out of 5]

نمی‌تونم بگم کتاب بدی بود. برای کسی که دانش پایه و درک و شناخت کلی از شبکه داره خوندن این کتاب کمک زیادی به فهم عمیق‌تر و جزیی‌ترش می‌کنه. اما برای کسی که از صفر داره شروع می‌کنه ممکنه اذیت‌کننده و زننده باشه.
بزرگ‌ترین مشکل کتاب زیاد بودن تکرار مکرراتشه. مفهومی رو که ابتدای صفحه توضیح داده، انتهای صفحه دوباره «کامل» توضیح می‌ده و برای خواننده ملال آورش می‌کنه.
البته لازمه بگم تمرینات برنامه‌نویسی و وایرشارک انتهای هر فصل خالی از لطف نیستن.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Starting from the application layer definitely makes it a great introduction for software-focused students. The textbook is easy to read and understand, although sometimes unnecessarily verbose. The online student resources (especially the programming assignments) are very useful as they bridge the gap between understanding the core concepts from the textbook and being able to read the RFCs properly.

[wyclif · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough, updated treatment of the technical details of computer networking. If considered strictly as a textbook, rather than a book about technology, I'd probably give it five stars. I'm giving it four stars because it is written rather dryly. Still, it's probably the most comprehensive and reliable book I can think of on the subject, and it's been exceedingly helpful to me over the years in its various editions for coming to grips with network design and topology.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally thorough and takes a conversational tone throughout most of the text, making for an easier read. Highlights included coverage of contemporary networking technologies (as of 2020), and a fairly solid introduction to key cryptographic primitives as a bonus in the 8th chapter on network security; pitfalls included some spotty editing in places and coverage of mobile networks that felt a bit too glossy despite getting its own chapter. Solid textbook for the material overall, though.

[Tracey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Computer Networking is a complex subject--it is not as clear and beautiful as algorithms and data structures, it has a lot of things due to historical issue or organizational reasons. It also ranges from the very top application layer to the bottom hardware connection. This book explains computer networking in an amazing manner through `a top down` approach, as itself proclaims.

This approach, not only help us better understand the material (at least for programmers) from the most familiar to the unfamiliar, but more importantly, it always keep us motivated. The lower layers need to provide some functionality required by the upper layer thus this or that are designed.

This book provides an abundant of analogy to facilitate our understanding and reference for further study.