Books & Videos

Practical UNIX and Internet Security, 2nd Edition

Release Date: April 1996

Pages: 1004

Read on Safari with a 10-day trial

Where’s the cart? Now you can get everything on Safari. To purchase books, visit Amazon or your favorite retailer. Questions? See our FAQ or contact customer service:

1-800-889-8969 / 707-827-7019
support@oreilly.com

Download Example Code

View/Submit Errata

When Practical UNIX Security was first published in 1991, it became an instant classic. Crammed with information about host security, it saved many a UNIX system administrator and user from disaster. This second edition is a complete rewrite of the original book. It's packed with twice the pages and offers even more practical information for UNIX users and administrators. It covers features of many types of UNIX systems, including SunOS, Solaris, BSDI, AIX, HP-UX, Digital UNIX, Linux, and others. The first edition was practical, entertaining, and full of useful scripts, tips, and warnings. This edition is all those things -- and more. If you are a UNIX system administrator or user in this security-conscious age, you need this book. It's a practical guide that spells out, in readable and entertaining language, the threats, the system vulnerabilities, and the countermeasures you can adopt to protect your UNIX system, network, and Internet connection. It's complete -- covering both host and network security -- and doesn't require that you be a programmer or a UNIX guru to use it. Practical UNIX & Internet Security describes the issues, approaches, and methods for implementing security measures. It covers UNIX basics, the details of security, the ways that intruders can get into your system, and the ways you can detect them, clean up after them, and even prosecute them if they do get in. Filled with practical scripts, tricks, and warnings, Practical UNIX & Internet Security tells you everything you need to know to make your UNIX system as secure as it possible can be. Contents include:

Part I: Computer Security Basics. Introduction and security policies.
Part II: User Responsibilities. Users and their passwords, groups, the superuser, the UNIX filesystem, and cryptography.
Part III: System Administrator Responsibilities. Backups, defending accounts, integrity checking, log files, programmed threats, physical security, and personnel security.
Part IV: Network and Internet Security: telephone security, UUCP, TCP/IP networks, TCP/IP services, WWW, RPC, NIS, NIS+, Kerberos, and NFS.
Part V: Advanced Topics: firewalls, wrappers, proxies, and secure programming.
Part VI: Handling Security Incidents: discovering a breakin, U.S. law, and trust.
VII: Appendixes. UNIX system security checklist, important files, UNIX processes, paper and electronic sources, security organizations, and table of IP services.