Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Cisco Secure PIX Firewalls by David W. Chapman Jr., Andy Fox ISBN: 1-58705-035-8 Publisher: Cisco Press Pub. Date: 18 December, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.52 (27 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Power of the PIX
Comment: The Editors of this book have done a fairly good job at explaining what "powers" the PIX Firewall possesses. This book is a great starting point for those of us who are learning the PIX and have very little experience with it. However, there are some portions of this book where experience will allow you to more thoroughly understand the concepts. The beginning of this book explains the types of PIX hardware that are available and best suited to a company's needs. It also breaks down the PIX models to the component level, giving you an understanding of the hardware configuration.
The first few chapters give a very good understanding of how to configure a PIX firewall from scratch. You would be able to get a PIX up and running in a matter of minutes, albeit it would not be as secure as it could be. Of course a company's security needs will dictate how the PIX will be implemented. Descriptions of commands and their uses are given and explained, but there are some sections of this book that requires some experience with the PIX for it to make sense. The section on password recovery is a very important one as people come in and out of tech positions all the time and passwords are always changed in the process. However, to the inexperienced reader, how would one know what software version you are running if you cannot get into the firewall? The authors do not explain how you would find out this information. If we are trying to do a password recovery, we more than likely are not able to get into the PIX to find out what software version we are running to begin with. Like I stated earlier, this may be an answer of experience. It may boot up and show the software version. For those of us who do not have access to a PIX or the relevant experience, it would be helpful for the authors to delve deeper and give us an explanation.
After getting through the first few chapters of basic commands on the PIX, it moves into the heavy duty security and authorization features of the PIX. Now we're getting into the nitty gritty of the firewall. Understanding of security features are explained in detail. AAA, VPN, and IPSec are emphasized in the latter chapters of the book. Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting is used to determine who a person is that is accessing the network. This security feature keeps out people who should not have access to your network. The VPN functionality of the PIX keeps you from having to purchase extra hardware or software. IPSec is explained and heavily used in the encryption of pertinent data that passes through the firewall. The book also explains the many different algorithms of encryption available for use with IPSec.
Now you may be thinking, "So what if my PIX were to fail"? The book explains the failover aspects of the PIX very well. Of course, you would have to be lucky enough to have two PIX firewalls on hand. I had no problems understanding the process of what happens when/if a component were to fail. The self-troubleshooting aspects of the PIX prior to failover are discussed as well. Any beginner reading this book would have a thorough understanding of how to setup a redundant firewall.
All in all, this book was well written and informative. It is easy enough for a beginner to pick up and understand. The notes in the book are great for possible scenarios that may arise in implementation. The examples are easy to follow, but the addition of a PIX simulation software would have made the steps more enjoyable. This book is a good starting point for those of you who are interested in Network Security and are pursuing a certification path in that direction. On a scale of 1-5, I give this book a 4. It was easy to read and to understand. I would definitely read titles from these authors again.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great Book to get your PIX up and running.
Comment: Bought this book and a PIX 525 at the same time, and although I had worked with Cisco routers before I found this book indispensable. I still use it as a reference for any configuration changes I make to the PIX. It may not go into the depth on some items, i.e. VPN or IDS, but it give a good overview of all the things it will take to get your PIX up and running fast.
Rating: 4
Summary: Limited but concise
Comment: I used this book to teach the matter to a group of novices, and I can say that it accomplished its mission. It gave to the students the backgroud they needed to undertand the technology, while orienting them through some basic hands-on labs. There are topics for which they needed further reference, specially when I came to ACS and VPNs.
Naturally, it wasn't made as an exam preparation reference (at least it is what I find out), though it has some knowledge assessment questions that help in the learning process.
If you are new to PIX Firewalls, this could be a good starting point.
 |
Title: Cisco Security Specialist's Guide to PIX Firewall by Umer Khan, Vitaly Osipov, Mike Sweeney, Woody Weaver ISBN: 1931836639 Publisher: Syngress Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $59.95 |
 |
Title: Cisco Secure Intrusion Detection System by Earl Carter ISBN: 158705034X Publisher: Cisco Press Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
 |
Title: Cisco Secure Virtual Private Networks by Andrew Mason ISBN: 1587050331 Publisher: Cisco Press Pub. Date: 18 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
 |
Title: Managing Cisco Network Security by Mike Wenstrom ISBN: 1578701031 Publisher: Pearson Higher Education Pub. Date: 15 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $60.00 |
 |
Title: Cisco(R) PIX (TM) Firewalls by Richard A. Deal ISBN: 0072225238 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media Pub. Date: 23 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $49.99 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
