Book Club
Book Review
Book Club
Title: Building Secure Servers with Linux
Author: Michael D.Bauer
Publisher: O'Reilly
ISBN: 0596002173
Review:
In his book "Building Secure Servers with Linux", Michael Bauer presents in-depth and well researched approaches to creating and maintaining a secure Linux server. In these days of teenage hackers, not to mention the seasoned veteran, the importance system security cannot be underestimated. Bauer's book does an extremely good job at going in depth to each topic.
I was especially pleased to see coverage of Syslog-NG and Swatch, two greatly underappreciated (and under utilized!) resources for managing system logfiles.
I was somewhat disappointed in the lackluster coverage of the Linux firewall, netfilter (a.k.a. iptables). Although entire books have been dedicated to the subject, Bauer writes a only a few pages on the topic. A security-conscious system administrator should be intimately familiar with every operation of iptables in order to fully "lock down" a server.
It is important to realize that no one set of guidelines can ever be considered the "holy grail" of system security; however, using techniques explained in this book, the intermediate-level sysadmin can quickly enhance the overall security of a Linux system. It is a text that I will certainly keep within reach, coupled with my O'Reilly "Linux Firewalls", as a quick reference to system security.
Review by:
Norman Elton
October 28, 2003
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