The TCP/IP Guide contains a great deal of information—many hundreds of pages of text, figures and tables. Organizing and structuring this much material into a Web site that is easy to read and navigate is a challenge. I spent quite a bit of time designing the site and including navigation features that I hope will make it easy for you to use.

Here are some tips for understanding how the material is organized and how best to navigate through it:

• Sections, Topics and Pages: As explained earlier in this Introduction, The TCP/IP Guide uses a hierarchical structure of sections that contain subsections, which may in turn be divided into further subsections as well as individual topics. Because some topics are very long, many have been broken into pages. There are over 1,500 sections, topics and pages on this site.
  
  
• Hierarchy Navigation: Near the top of each page of the site you will see in a purple-outlined box a cascading set of links that reflect your current position in The TCP/IP organizational structure. You can click any of these links to go up one or more levels in the hierarchy. For example, the hierarchy navigation for the topic you are now reading shows it is within the section The TCP/IP Guide: Introduction and "Guide To The Guide", which is in turn under The TCP/IP Guide.
  
  
• Accessing the Table Of Contents: To the left of the hierarchy navigation box is the table of contents button. Click it to bring up the full contents of The TCP/IP Guide.
  
  
• Next/Previous Section/Topic Navigation: At the top and bottom of each page is a solid purple box that contains buttons and links for moving sequentially through the Guide. On the far left and far right of this box are text links and large arrows that take you directly to the start of the previous or next full topic or section. These always take you to the first page of any topic that has multiple pages, to allow you to skip all the pages of any topic you don’t want to read.
  
  
• Direct Page Navigation: In the middle of the purple box you will see a navigation display for moving easily through the pages of a topic. Each page number is listed, with the current page shown in white text on a dark background, and the other pages hyperlinked for easy direct access.
  
  
• Next/Previous Page Navigation: You will also see in the purple box smaller arrows that take you to the previous or next page of The TCP/IP Guide. The small left arrow goes to the previous page of the current topic, or if you are on its first (or only) page, the last page of the previous topic. The right arrow goes to the next page of the current topic, or if you are on its last (or only) page, takes you to the first page of the next topic. You can use these arrow to move sequentially through the entire TCP/IP Guide.
  
  
• Text Links: At the bottom of each page are a set of text links that take you to The TCP/IP Guide home page, the Table of Contents, and the page where you can contact me with questions or feedback.

That’s pretty much it! If you still need assistance, please write to me using The TCP/IP Guide contact page.