Teach Yourself Tcp/Ip in 14 Days (Sams Teach Yourself)

Amazon.com

As you might imagine, Teach Yourself TCP/IP in 14 Days provides a rapid introduction to the TCP/IP protocols and to a few commonly used applications that are built on top of them. The discussion is very lucid and emphasizes the fundamental concepts behind a given protocol; it does a good job of not letting the mass of details obscure the reasoning. Each section ends with a quiz and series of questions (and answers), so you can test your knowledge of each topic. The book also includes useful sections on sample installations and a nice discussion of sockets. As an added bonus, the book's appendix contains an index that maps an application and/or a protocol to the appropriate RFC (Request for Comments) document.