Re: protocol programming from rfc
Re: protocol programming from rfc
- Subject: Re: protocol programming from rfc
- From: "Michael Crawford" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 16:01:52 -0700
Hi,
While you do need to become a programmer, you don't need to format raw
packets according to the RFCs. The Mac OS X kernel has TCP/IP
networking built-in.
There are several APIs for this, but I suggest starting with the
following commands in a Terminal window:
man 2 socket
man 2 bind
man 2 read
man 2 write
(UNIX - including OS X - network sockets that are bound to the TCP
protocol can be used in read and write system calls just as if they
were files on your hard disk.)
Douglas Comer's books on TCP/IP networking are timeless classics:
http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/netbooks.html
While you won't need to format packet headers manually, understanding
what's in them is very helpful for debugging networking software while
using a protocol analyzer, or network packet sniffer.
It will take you a long time, a lot of hard work to learn how to do
this, but if you're patient and persistent, someday you will be a
network programmer. You could write some of the coolest code there
is, and find it very easy to get a rewarding and high-paying job.
Maybe you could even work for Apple someday!
There was a time when I was just starting out, and I wanted to be a
programmer someday. All I could afford was a used Mac 512k with a
single-sided floppy drive and no hard disk. I couldn't afford Inside
Macintosh so I read it while standing in the aisles at Bookshop Santa
Cruz.
But with the help of a number of people who were a little more
encouraging than some of the posters in this thread have been, I've
now had nearly twenty years as a software engineer.
Here is a helpful article I wrote just for folks like you:
Study Fundamentals, Not API's, Tools or OSes
http://www.goingware.com/tips/fundamentals.html
I wish you well in your endeavours,
Mike Crawford
mdcrawford at gmail dot com
http://www.goingware.com/
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