Linux Security Cookbook

by Daniel J. Barrett, Richard E. Silverman, Robert G. Byrnes

Computer security is an ongoing process, a relentless contest between system administrators and intruders. A good administrator needs to stay one step ahead of any adversaries, which often involves a continuing process of education. If you're grounded in the basics of security, however, you won't necessarily want a complete treatise on the subject each time you pick up a book. Sometimes you want to get straight to the point. That's exactly what the new Linux Security Cookbook does. Rather than provide a total security solution for Linux computers, the authors present a series of easy-to-follow recipes--short, focused pieces of code that administrators can use to improve security and perform common tasks securely. The Linux Security Cookbook includes real solutions to a wide range of targeted problems, such as sending encrypted email within Emacs, restricting access to network services at particular times of day, firewalling a webserver, preventing IP spoofing, setting up key-based SSH authentication, and much more. With over 150 ready-to-use scripts and configuration files, this unique book helps administrators secure their systems without having to look up specific syntax. The book begins with recipes devised to establish a secure system, then moves on to secure day-to-day practices, and concludes with techniques to help your system stay secure. Some of the "recipes" you'll find in this book This cookbook's proven techniques are derived from hard-won experience. Whether you're responsible for security on a home Linux system or for a large corporation, or somewhere in between, you'll find valuable, to-the-point, practical recipes for dealing with everyday security issues. This book is a system saver.

Genres: Reference

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Daniel J. Barrett, Ph.D., has been teaching and writing about Linux, the internet, and related technologies for more than 30 years. Dan has also been a software engineer, heavy metal singer, system administrator, university lecturer, birthday party magician, and humorist.

Note: If you are looking for "Daniel J. Barrett" the mystery writer, visit https://www.goodreads.com/author/show....

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Linux Security Cookbook must have been one of the earlier O'Reilly books that I purchased. I'm sure I've referred to several of the recipes over the years. In deciding to read this cover-to-cover after all this time, while dated and obviously not comprehensive, it's actually a pretty good security primer for any novice wanting to get familiar with tools used for Linux from a more security-minded standpoint.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has aged reasonably well since 2003; the main "problem" is that a few of the hardening tips (e.g. source address verification) are now defaults. This is a Good Thing. Otherwise, like most of O'Reilly's Cookbook series: very clear directions for a number of specific tasks that serve as an entry point to more involvement in the topic. Remarkably good for reference when later on you remember "oh, I know I came across a way to do that." The structure makes content per page fairly low, but the utility very high; the ebook's totally the way to go.

[Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good overall recipe book. A little dated but a great one stop trusted place to get awnsers when ou need them.