Customer Reviews

Cisco IP Routing: Packet Forwarding and Intra-domain Routing Protocols

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With my CCNA exam date staring straight at me, I decided to finally read my copy of Alex Zinin's 'Cisco IP Routing.' This book clearly exceeds the level of knowledge to pass Cisco's entry level certification. It is aimed more at CCNPs or CCIEs who need a deeper understanding of Cisco routing. Nevertheless, I found the book's explanations of certain subjects to be absolutely outstanding, even for a CCNA candidate. I recommend anyone wishing to learn Cisco router operations read 'Cisco IP Routing.'

This book seeks to deliver the 'why' as well as the 'how' of Cisco routing. It was published in late 2001 and uses IOS 12.1 as its reference platform. This IOS version is recent enough to meet my expectations, so don't fear that the book may not apply to more recent Cisco software and hardware. Remember that the 2600 series router was introduced in January 1999, and the modular 2600XM series arrived only in May 2002.

The first compelling aspect of 'Cisco IP Routing' is its exceptionally well-written and thorough explanations of various routing topics. Although my understanding of the subject was improved by reading Todd Lammle's Sybex CCNA books, Alex Zinin's approach assisted me immensely. For example, he helped me understand that classful addressing offers basic subnetting, which 'was used in the real world long before VLSM [Variable-Length Subnet Masks] appeared' (p. 22). He made it clear on p. 52 that 'when multiple matching routes are available to the same destination, routers choose the longest matching route to forward the packets.' This allows specifying a default route that is only used when more specific routes do not match a given destination.

Beyond very insightful routing discussions, Alex makes his point using a variety of methods. In some cases he presents tables that compare protocols. Elsewhere he uses diagrams or figures. Throughout the book he demonstrates syntax and configuration, along with debugging messages showing how protocols work in real life. His innovative use of 'pseudo-code' shows how Cisco might represent protocol information within IOS itself. In many chapters he presents and answers frequently asked questions. These help to dispel myths readers may have concerning Cisco routers.

I cannot complain about any real aspect of this book. As a minor point, Alex's thorough examinations of routing packet headers should have been augmented by real packet traces. I would like to see a companion volume introduce topics like spanning tree, BGP, and other routing and switching issues. Readers looking for such coverage now might like Radia Perlman's 'Interconnections, 2nd Ed' and Iljitsch van Beijnum's 'BGP.'

If you want to truly learn what your Cisco router does when it makes forwarding decisions, you must read 'Cisco IP Routing.' I have not seen any other books so powerfully expose the inner workings of these critical systems.

This book is a must for anyone interested in more than just what routing protocols do and how to configure them. Zinin's book covers material not found in other books focusing on the inner workings of Cisco routers and intra-domain routing protocols. This book gives the reader a real understanding of how IGPs function and how Cisco routers process them. After reading this book you will have a real understanding of routing, far beyond just how to configure and implement routing protocols. This book not only covers router configuration, but routing theory, subsystems, data structures, event processing, input processing, algorithms, and more. This is not just another book on routing protocols! After reading this book, you will understand routing as only a few people do.

The book uses a lot of algorithms and pseudocode to help explain the routing processes and router operations. I would not recommend this book for someone who does not already have a good understanding of routing protocols (I would suggest Doyle's, Routing TCP/IP Volume I). But for those looking for more detailed information and explanations of how a router operates and for a real understanding of intra-domain routing protocols, then this book is essential reading!

If you liked Doyle's Routing TCP/IP Volume I book and ready for more great information on routing, then I highly recommend this book!

As an author of networking design books, I've chosen to focus on the application of protocols rather than their internals, but have always wished I had a resource to which I could refer people that needed to know about specific implementations. RFCs are not always quite the right information source, especially when certain features are implementer choices anyway. For the first time, I now have somewhere to refer these people.

This book goes into the same sort of depth on the Cisco router control plane (i.e., routing protocols, routing table) that the Inside Cisco IOS Software Architecture book does on the operating system and forwarding. It's the first published (admittedly pseudocode) descriptions of the actual data structures of the various routing tables, the logic of the routines updating it, and the actual logic of redistribution. Highly recommended.

I suspect this will answer a lot of the "why" questions about redistribution and the like, if you lack, like most people, a background in protocol development and can make good guesses!

Alex is a colleague in the IETF and other groups, and actually has more credentials than shown on the book. He's recently been named co-director of the IETF Routing Area, as well as being active in individual IETF groups and the Internet Research Task Force routing group.

The first time I heard this book is when I took the Internetworkexpert's online course. Brian McGahan recommended it. Becuase of its high customer rating, this book should have something worth studying. After reading through a couple of chapters, I feel it is a great book in IP Routing protocols.

This book presents concepts along with router outcome, so it's fairly easy to follow the author's logic in each different technology. This makes this book easy to digest. The way it presents how routing protocols work is very similar to Doyle's TCPIP vol.1. Yet, its editing style is more concise and it covers more in-depth materials in the IGP area.

Associated with Doyle's TCPIP and Parkhurst's OSPF, this book should be a required reading for CCIE RS candidates.

This is a very good book for people who want to learn the in depths of routing in general and cisco routing in particular. Protocol description is very well written going from beginner to advanced level. I recommend this to everybody who wants to make a networking career.

This book is not for the faint of heart.
Ever read a book and find a sentence that makes you say "man that one fact was worth the cash!". You get about one sentence like that every page in this text.

Example:
ip route 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 s0 172.17.1.33

I bought the book because I wanted to understand when, why, and how that command works. All of my questions were answered.

Since I'm not a programmer some of the explainations took me awhile to get, but worth it.

Gold.

This is a corner-stone of Cisco routing engine explanation. It doesn't contain any braindump stuff like many books do. But it covers many topics: theoretical basis, IOS pseudo code explanations, configuration examples and trace/debugging methods. There are also many interesting details and gismos that I didn't find anywhere . It's very useful as a preparation guide -- you have to read this book if you do want to pass some sort of serious Cisco's exams (I mean CCNP or CCIE). So it's outstanding title (in other words -- it worth to spend 50+ bucks for it guyz!) :))

Btw, now I'm waiting for your next book. Why not? Will it be dedicated to MPLS or MLOSPF? Huh? :))

If Jeff Doyle's book is a masterpiece so I'll say this is a classic. Oh boy! did I ever say I know routing? If I did, I am sorry because this book is an eye opener. I am still half way through it but cant resist to comment. Awesome work Sir Alex ;-)

Shahid Shafi

This is, by far, the most informative book on Cisco IP routing. The author has incredible understanding and insight into every topic that is covered in the book. Remarkable. This is not for everyone(for example, I am a CCIE), but the information provided here is quite unique. After you have read all the books published by Cisco, read this one. You will learn something.

Great book! Every CCIE should have this book. Every CCIE candidate should read this book if they really need to understand how IP routing works on Cisco routers. This is very much like the IOS Architecture book (Russ White et al) in that it covers information that no other book covers. Another must have book!