Book Report: "Cisco Router Configuration & Troubleshooting"
by:  Mark Tripod (of Exodus Communications)

published by: New Riders (http://www.newriders.com

copyright 1999     ISBN: 0-7357-0024-9     271 pages 
Price: $34.99 (US) (retail / cover price)
Price: $25.95 (US) (at Fry's Electronics - Phoenix, Arizona)
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(Table of contents summary):

Section 1: Getting Started =======================
  chapter 1:  Networking & TCP/IP
  chapter 2:  Cisco Routers - an Overview

Section 2: Router Configuration ==================
  chapter 3:  Initial Router Set-up
  chapter 4:  Local Area Networking
  chapter 5:  Wide Area Networkiing
  chapter 6:  Configuring Dynamic Routing Protocols
  chapter 7:  Traffic & Access Management

Section 3:  Router Monitoring ====================
  chapter 8:  Collecting Data via SNMP
  chapter 9:  Collecting Data via Other Menans

Section 4: Router Troubleshooting ================
  chapter 10:  Troubleshooting
  chapter 11:  Tools of the Trade
  chapter 12:  case studay
  chapter 13:  Troubleshooting the physical layer
  chapter 14:  Troubleshooting the Network Layer
  chapter 15:  Troubleshooting Dynamice Protocols

index

Bill's Synopsys:

This book, I bought, because (as a frequent traveller) I wanted something that was:

1.) small & light 
2.) a good 'summary' or 'overview' of some of this / these subject-items
3.) gave me a good 'introduction' to those areas where I wasn't "up-to-speed"
       (such as some of the higher-bandwidth areas of OC3 pipes
4.) talked a bit about SNMP at a 'lower level' and covered other methods of polling
       or monitoring
       
This book does a fairly good job of everything I bought it for.   It is not, however,
the "desk-reference' that many of the Cisco 'approved / recommended' titles are for
the CCIE exam(s)... It is not a "be-all / end-all" book on the subject.  However it
certainly does a good job of touching a number of things at a very cursory level, and
to some extent pointing you towards further work or depth.

it has an annoying habit of at random places in the text, though, on the bottom of 
this page or that putting a "foot-note" that doesn't seem to relate to anything in/on
the chapter it seems with. - Now maybe these are supposed to be "pearls of wisdom"
or something, but I didn't quite get the 'drift' - maybe other readers would. 

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I found, however, that it, like most even fairly poor books, had it's gems of interest,
like: 

pathchar - a heck of a nice tool that combines some aspects of Ping & Traceroute
            (http://www.nrg-ee.lbl.gov  OR   ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov)
            
CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol) - a command / tool in Cisco's IOS that's quite useful
     (especially in the domain where I spend an increasing amount of my time - in the 
      WAN - world...) (see your Cisco IOS user's or reference documentation)
    
looking glass -  a way to give people not "authorized" to use / access your router(s) a
     method to allow them to issue ping / trace-route from your router to some other 
     node in the system, which would help them be more efficient de-buggers of their
     networking problem(s)...
     
web-page ping / traceroute (similar to looking glass)...

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and - here's a quick "gotcha" that's not related to networking / Cisco - but is 
an issue with the way in which we 'help' our customers (the user-community)...

solve this one for a steak dinner:

why does a user repeatedly call in the morning with a mouse problem, but not call in
the afternoon (real case) and what would you do after the 2nd or 3rd call of the same 
problem? _ (this is both 'technical' and a 'customer-care' question?!

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mo later - bill