298 lines
6.5 KiB
HTML
298 lines
6.5 KiB
HTML
<HTML
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>Preface</TITLE
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>Linux Network Administrators Guide</TH
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CLASS="PREFACE"
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><H1
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><A
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NAME="AEN3"
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>Preface</A
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></H1
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><DIV
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CLASS="TOC"
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><DL
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><DT
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><B
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>Table of Contents</B
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></DT
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><DT
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>1. <A
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HREF="x12.html"
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>Purpose and Audience for This Book</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>2. <A
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HREF="x16.html"
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>Sources of Information</A
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></DT
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><DD
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><DL
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><DT
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>2.1. <A
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HREF="x16.html#AEN107"
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>Documentation Available via FTP</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>2.2. <A
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HREF="x16.html#AEN119"
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>Documentation Available via WWW</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>2.3. <A
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HREF="x16.html#AEN133"
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>Documentation Available Commercially</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>2.4. <A
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HREF="x16.html#AEN175"
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>Linux Journal and Linux Magazine</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>2.5. <A
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HREF="x16.html#AEN190"
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>Linux Usenet Newsgroups</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>2.6. <A
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HREF="x16.html#AEN243"
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>Linux Mailing Lists</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>2.7. <A
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HREF="x16.html#AEN274"
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>Online Linux Support</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>2.8. <A
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HREF="x16.html#AEN292"
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>Linux User Groups</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>2.9. <A
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HREF="x16.html#AEN317"
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>Obtaining Linux</A
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></DT
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></DL
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></DD
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><DT
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>3. <A
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HREF="x394.html"
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>File System Standards</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>4. <A
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HREF="x410.html"
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>Standard Linux Base</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>5. <A
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HREF="x425.html"
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>About This Book</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>6. <A
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HREF="x453.html"
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>The Official Printed Version</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>7. <A
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HREF="x-087-2-intro.outlook.html"
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>Overview</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>8. <A
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HREF="x523.html"
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>Conventions Used in This Book</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>9. <A
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HREF="x-087-2-submitchanges.html"
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>Submitting Changes</A
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></DT
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><DT
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>10. <A
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HREF="x575.html"
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>Acknowledgments</A
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></DT
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></DL
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></DIV
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><P
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>The Internet is now a household term in many countries. With otherwise
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serious people beginning to joyride along the Information Superhighway,
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computer networking seems to be moving toward the status of TV sets
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and microwave ovens. The Internet has unusually high media coverage, and
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social science majors are descending on Usenet newsgroups, online virtual
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reality environments, and the Web to conduct research on the new
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“Internet Culture.”</P
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><P
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>Of course, networking has been around for a long time. Connecting
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computers to form local area networks has been common practice, even
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at small installations, and so have long-haul links using transmission
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lines provided by telecommunications companies. A rapidly growing
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conglomerate of world-wide networks has, however, made joining the
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global village a perfectly reasonable option for even small non-profit
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organizations of private computer users. Setting up an Internet host
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with mail and news capabilities offering dialup and ISDN access has
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become affordable, and the advent of DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) and
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Cable Modem technologies will doubtlessly continue this trend.</P
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><P
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>Talking about computer networks often means talking about Unix. Of
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course, Unix is not the only operating system with network
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capabilities, nor will it remain a frontrunner forever, but it has
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been in the networking business for a long time, and will surely
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continue to be for some time to come.</P
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><P
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>What makes Unix particularly interesting to private users is that there has
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been much activity to bring free Unix-like operating systems to the PC, such
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as 386BSD, FreeBSD, and Linux.</P
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><P
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>Linux is a freely distributable Unix clone for personal computers. It
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currently runs on a variety of machines that includes the Intel family
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of processors, but also Motorola 680x0 machines, such as the Commodore
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Amiga and Apple Macintosh; Sun SPARC and Ultra-SPARC machines; Compaq
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Alphas; MIPS; PowerPCs, such as the new generation of Apple Macintosh;
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and StrongARM, like the rebel.com Netwinder and 3Com Palm
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machines. Linux has been ported to some relatively obscure platforms,
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like the Fujitsu AP-1000 and the IBM System 3/90. Ports to other
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interesting architectures are currently in progress in developers'
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labs, and the quest to move Linux into the embedded controller space
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promises success.</P
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><P
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>Linux was developed by a large team of volunteers across the Internet.
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The project was started in 1990 by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish college
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student, as an operating systems course project. Since that time,
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Linux has snowballed into a full-featured Unix clone capable of
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running applications as diverse as simulation and modeling programs,
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word processors, speech recognition systems, World Wide Web browsers,
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and a horde of other software, including a variety of excellent
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games. A great deal of hardware is supported, and Linux contains a
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complete implementation of TCP/IP networking, including SLIP, PPP,
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firewalls, a full IPX implementation, and many features and some
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protocols not found in any other operating system. Linux is powerful,
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fast, and free, and its popularity in the world beyond the Internet is
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growing rapidly.</P
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><P
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>The Linux operating system itself is covered by the GNU General Public
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License, the same copyright license used by software developed by the Free
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Software Foundation. This license allows anyone to redistribute or modify
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the software (free of charge or for a profit) as long as all modifications
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and distributions are freely distributable as well. The term “free
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software” refers to freedom of application, not freedom of cost.</P
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></DIV
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="index.html"
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>Prev</A
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></TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="34%"
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ALIGN="center"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="index.html"
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>Home</A
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></TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="right"
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VALIGN="top"
|
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><A
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HREF="x12.html"
|
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>Next</A
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></TD
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></TR
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
|
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ALIGN="left"
|
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VALIGN="top"
|
|
>Linux Network Administrators Guide</TD
|
|
><TD
|
|
WIDTH="34%"
|
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ALIGN="center"
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VALIGN="top"
|
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> </TD
|
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><TD
|
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WIDTH="33%"
|
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ALIGN="right"
|
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VALIGN="top"
|
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>Purpose and Audience for This Book</TD
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></TR
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></TABLE
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></DIV
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></BODY
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> |