Amazon.com Review
Three cheers for the Nutshell format! There may be no better printed style for command-line environments, like the Internetwork Operating System (IOS) that runs on Cisco Systems routers.
Cisco IOS in a Nutshell documents the most important bits of the frequently arcane IOS command line from
aaa accounting to
write, thereby providing a valuable resource to everyone who works with IOS. The reference section--which makes up about 60 percent of this book--summarizes each command (again, they're not all covered, but the ones that aren't are pretty obscure) with a statement of its scope (global, interface, line, or whatever), followed by generalized syntax summaries in the style of Unix man pages (these indicate the legal combinations of switches and parameters). Then, a detailed discussion of each switch and parameter clarifies what each is for. The whole reference section is alphabetical, with lettered dark boxes on the pages' outer edges that are easy to scan while flipping pages rapidly.
Prior to the reference section, the author explains how the IOS interface refers to and controls aspects of routers, such as lines and interfaces. He does a great job of it, too--you could do far worse than to read his explanations before going to work under IOS for the first time. The other great value of this early section is in the author's discussion of how to configure a new router by bringing interfaces, data-communication protocols (like TCP/IP), routing protocols (like Border Gateway Protocol, or BGP), and services like Domain Name Service (DNS) online. This book is a tremendous value for Cisco engineers. --David Wall
Topics covered: How to configure a Cisco Systems router with the Internetwork Operating System (IOS). The most popular commands are documented, and there's a tutorial section that familiarizes readers with the Cisco way of thinking about a router's work. The author uses IOS 12.x as his baseline, though users of older versions will find his work valuable.
Product Description
Cisco routers come in all shapes and sizes and almost all of them, from the smallest to the largest, run the IOS operating system. IOS is an extremely powerful and complex operating system, with an equivalently complex configuration language. There are many commands, with many options, and if one thing is configured incorrectly, the entire company could find itself offline.
Cisco IOS in a Nutshell covers IOS configuration for the TCP/IP protocol family. The book is divided into two parts: the first includes chapters on the user interface, configuring lines and interfaces, access lists, routing protocols, and dial-on-demand routing and security. The second part is a classic O'Reilly-style quick reference to all the commands that you need to work with TCP/IP, including the lower-level protocols on which it relies, and lots of examples of the most commonly encountered configuration steps for the routers themselves.
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