This thing called RFC.

One of the other things, I routinely do is read up IETF published Request for Comments. Most of the RFC's describe a networking protocol. Simply put, I believe that if you want to understand the architecture of the Internet, you have to read the RFC's. As someone said, the architecture is in the protocols. The protocols affects the way Internet looks like. I like to compare the way protocols define the way Internet is to the way human society is shaped by the laws which govern it. But, wait a minute, reading a RFC means a lot of effort. If you think you have understood what a RFC says after reading it once, well think again. One of the things that routinely get me frustrated is that no matter how many times I re-read a RFC, new things pop up the next time i refer back to it. It is a plain understatement to say that there are a lot of subtleties in a RFC. I was reading among others the RFC 3315. This talks about DHCPv6. That is DHCP for IPv6. The first time is usually a uphill task as there are a lot of forward references. The document will sometimes refer to a particular term before it is defined. Not all RFC's are plain business, there are RFC's that talk about how to write a RFC. There is this Hitchhiker's guide to the Internet. I read all the RFC's here: https://faqs.org/rfcs/ I especially like the categorized view at https://www.faqs.org/rfcs/np.html . Happy RFC-reading.