Linux Networking

As it is the result of a concerted effort of programmers around the world, Linux
wouldn't have been possible without the global network. So it's not surprising that
in the early stages of development, several people started to work on providing it
with network capabilities. A UUCP implementation was running on Linux almost
from the very beginning, and work on TCP/IP-based networking started around
autumn 1992, when Ross Biro and others created what has now become known as
Net-1.
After Ross quit active development in May 1993, Fred van Kempen began to work
on a new implementation, rewriting major parts of the code. This project was
known as Net-2. The first public release, Net-2d, was made in the summer of 1993
(as part of the 0.99.10 kernel), and has since been maintained and expanded by
several people, most notably Alan Cox.[4] Alan's original work was known as
Net-2Debugged. After heavy debugging and numerous improvements to the code,
he changed its name to Net-3 after Linux 1.0 was released. The Net-3 code was
further developed for Linux 1.2 and Linux 2.0. The 2.2 and later kernels use the
Net-4 version network support, which remains the standard official offering today.
[4] Alan can be reached at alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk
The Net-4 Linux Network code offers a wide variety of device drivers and
advanced features. Standard Net-4 protocols include SLIP and PPP (for sending
network traffic over serial lines), PLIP (for parallel lines), IPX (for Novell
compatible networks, which we'll discuss in Chapter 15, IPX and the NCP
Filesystem), Appletalk (for Apple networks) and AX.25, NetRom, and Rose (for
amateur radio networks). Other standard Net-4 features include IP firewalling, IP
accounting (discussed later in Chapter 9, TCP/IP Firewall and Chapter 10, IP
Accounting), and IP Masquerade (discussed later in Chapter 11, IP Masquerade
and Network Address Translation. IP tunnelling in a couple of different flavors
and advanced policy routing are supported. A very large variety of Ethernet
devices is supported, in addition to support for some FDDI, Token Ring, Frame
Relay, and ISDN, and ATM cards.
Additionally, there are a number of other features that greatly enhance the
flexibility of Linux. These features include an implementation of the SMB
filesystem, which interoperates with applications like lanmanagerand Microsoft
Windows, called Samba, written by Andrew Tridgell, and an implementation of
the Novell NCP (NetWare Core Protocol).[5]
[5] NCP is the protocol on which Novell file and print services are
based.