Linux Firewalls: 3rd Edition (Pearson Professional Education) - Softcover

Suehring, Steve; Ziegler, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0672327716 ISBN 13: 9780672327711

Publisher: Novell Press, 2005

Synopsis

An Internet-connected Linux machine is in a high-risk situation. Linux Firewalls, Third Edition details security steps that any sized implementation--from home use to enterprise level--might take to protect itself from potential remote attackers. As with the first two editions, this book is especially useful for its explanations of iptables, packet filtering, and firewall optimization along with some advanced concepts including customizing the Linux kernel to enhance security.The third edition, while distribution neutral, has been updated for the current Linux Kernel and provides code examples for Red Hat, SUSE, and Debian implementations. Don't miss out on the third edition of the critically acclaimed Linux Firewalls.

About this title

Review

TCP/IP packet handling may sound crystal clear when you first hear it, but after you've configured your ethernet card's netmask address, the details become rather remote. You might find yourself asking--if you were a Danish prince--"What is a packet, if its chief good and market of its time be but to route and wrap?" If routing and wrapping were all packets did, we would all enjoy our ignorance blissfully. But packets--like men, as the prince learned--can be hollow carriers of ill will, and excluding the bad ones requires us to understand what they really, truly are. At last.

Just how interesting packets turn out to be is revealed in Linux Firewalls, Robert L. Zeigler's sober, agile and subtle text. Narrowing consideration to threats faced by small networks from external sources, Zeigler and his editors introduce security by delivering pre-requisite tutorials on packet architecture and normal, network-based client-server daemon-to-daemon communications. Non-threatening daemon-to-daemon communication is part of the regular operation of a networked, POSIX-compliant operating system (like Linux or NT), but the incessant background chatter makes finding hostile intrusions a search for sometimes-subtle irregularities in a high throughput environment.

In fact, bombardment of networks with useless packets can create diversions for more pernicious attacks. Telling the good packets from the potentially hostile or merely useless packets requires levels of filtering criteria that depend on the specifics of the network environment. Zeigler sorts out all of these issues and outlines practical network administration strategies for packet filtering.

Linux Firewalls is a how-to for the home Linux box, including the creating and debugging firewall rules for home LANs and network interfaces. For larger LAN users, Zeigler describes intrusion logging, configurations based on varying levels of trust, and the how, why and when of reporting intrusions to network authorities.

In the wrong hands, firewall reports are either hyped-up cloak-and-dagger sensationalism or monotonous treatises in bitwise accounting. Zeigler strikes a middle ground with a book fit for members of the Linux community who are curious about what is happening over their TCP/IP connections. These are folks who have the prowess to build kernel releases on their own, but who aren't necessarily wonks at developing kernel or device driver sources. --Peter Leopold, Amazon.com

About the Author

Steve Suehring is the Linux Security Editor for Linux World Magazine and uses firewalls and firewall technologies on a variety of linux systems. 

 

A renowned firewall architect and consultant, Bob Ziegler has worked for such companies as Nokia , collaborating with a router and access groups. He is well known as the author of the two previous editions of Linux Firewalls (0735709009 and 0735710996).  Ziegler operates a firewall resource site, www.linux-firewall-tools/linux to share his design skills and evaluations of tools.

Edition details

• Publisher: Novell Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0672327716
• ISBN 13: 9780672327711
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 552