1. Introduction

1.1. Background and Purpose

On 1 June 1989, several members of the IETF User Services Working Group convened an interim working group session at the JVNC Supercomputer Center in Princeton, NJ. The purpose of the meeting was to form a distinct working group that would assemble a bibliography of useful information about the Internet for end users and for those who help end users. The first official meeting of the User Documents Working Group was held at the Stanford IETF in July 1989. The goal of the working group was to prepare a bibliography of on-line and hard copy documents, reference materials, and multimedia training tools that address general networking information and "how to use the Internet". The target audience was beginner level and intermediate level end users.

1.2. Scope

This bibliography is the result of volunteer work provided by members of the User Documents Working Group. The intent of this effort is to present a representative collection of materials that will help the reader become familiar with the concepts of internetworking and will form the basis for future study. This is, quite simply, a good place to start. References to other sources of information within this collection of materials will be useful to readers who wish to pursue, in greater depth, the issues and complexities of the current networking environment. Please send comments to us-wg@nnsc.nsf.net.

1.3. Organization of Document

This version of the bibliography is divided into 10 distinct categories of material, and each category is presented in a separate section:

           2  ARTICLES
           3  BIBLIOGRAPHIES
           4  BOOKS
           5  CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS
           6  GLOSSARIES
           7  GUIDES
           8  MULTIMEDIA
           9  NEWSLETTERS
           10 REPORTS AND PAPERS
           11 REQUESTS FOR COMMENTS (RFCs)

Within each section, material is arranged in alphabetical order by author or authoring organization with the exception of Section 11:

REQUESTS FOR COMMENTS (RFCs). The RFCs are ordered numerically. All entries contain fairly standard bibliographic information and provide a short abstract with information on how to obtain the particular material addressed.

For brand new network users, unsure of what to read first, we suggest reading Ed Krol's, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet" (listed in the Guide section). For general information on an introduction to Internet protocols, two documents are quite useful: Charles Hedrick's, "Introduction to the Internet Protocols", and Doug Comer's textbook, "Internetworking with TCP/IP: Principles, Protocols, and Architecture". Two excellent guides to existing networks are Tracy L. LaQuey's, "Users' Directory of Computer Networks" and John S. Quarterman's "The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide". We strongly encourage the reader to scan the bibliography in its entirety as some items may be more applicable to personal needs or site requirements. (Please note that in many instances the abstracts are excerpts, provided verbatim, from the material described.)

1.4. Obtaining Files By Anonymous FTP

Much of the material referenced in this bibliography is available on-line and can be obtained by using the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Directions on how to obtain on-line files by anonymous FTP action follow. In this example, the host used is nic.ddn.mil.

Files may be obtained with the FTP program in conjunction with an ANONYMOUS login. Versions of the FTP program may vary from system to system, so the commands shown in this example may need to be modified to work on your system.

       % ftp nic.ddn.mil  <== Use the FTP program to
                                       connect to nic.ddn.mil
       Connected to nic.ddn.mil
       220 NIC.DDN.MIL FTP Server 5Z(47)-6 at Fri 23-Jun-89 09:38-PDT

The system should respond with a message to indicate that a connection has been made. Users on a Unix system will probably be prompted for a login name. Type in "anonymous" as in the example below:

       Name (nic.ddn.mil:kbowers): anonymous
       331 ANONYMOUS user ok, send real ident as password.
       Password:      <== Type in <guest> at the password prompt

Other systems may require the use of a "login" or "user" command to send the username to the server computer. Users unsure of the command should contact a local site representative for the specific commands.

After the username and password are sent to the system, a message to indicate that the login has been made successfully should appear:

       230 User ANONYMOUS logged in at Fri 23-Jun-89 09:39-PDT, job 17.

The user then connects to the directory in which the document to be retrieved resides. This is done with the cd command:

       ftp> cd RFC:
       331 Default name accepted. Send password to connect to it.

The user should now be connected to the RFC: directory. The "dir" or "ls" command will list the files available in this directory.

       ftp> dir
       200 Port 4.124 at host 192.33.33.51 accepted.
       150 List started.
       *** At this point a list of the files in the directory
           should appear **
       226 Transfer completed.

The "get" command will get any file in the directory.

       ftp> get RFC821.TXT
       200 Port 4.125 at host 192.33.33.51 accepted.
       150 ASCII retrieve of TS<RFC>RFC.821.TXT.1 (49 pages) started.
       226 Transfer completed. 124482 (8) bytes transferred.
       local: RFC.821.TXT remote: RFC.821.TXT
       124482 bytes received in 55 seconds (2.2 Kbytes/s)

The "quit" command leaves the FTP program.

       ftp> quit
       221 QUIT command received. Goodbye.

1.5. Submitting Entries to the Bibliography

This is the first version of the "Where to Start" bibliography. Comments and suggested entries are welcome and should be sent by electronic mail to us-wg@nnsc.nsf.net.

To submit an entry for consideration, please provide the following specific details as appropriate:

   Author or authoring organization:
   Editor (if author is unavailable):
   Title:
   Journal (example: Time Magazine):
   Volume:
   Number:
   Number of pages:
   Specific pages within which the article is contained:
   Publisher or publishing organization:
   City of Publication:
   Date of document:
   Material category (Choose only one: article; bibliography; book;
                      conference/ workshop; glossary; guide;
                      multimedia; newsletter; on-line file;
                      report/paper; RFC):

   Abstract: (Please provide a one paragraph abstract describing
              the thrust of the document/reference material/
              multimedia training tool.  Within the abstract
              include information on how one can obtain the
              material described.  See the entries in this
              bibliography for examples.)