Writer: Carla Schroeder
Published Year: 2008
Publisher: O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Edition: 2nd (Original Print )
ISBN-10: 0-596-10248-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-596-10248-7
Size: 3.3 MB (rar)
CONTENT
Chapter 1: Introduction to Linux Networking
This is your high-level view of computer networking, covering cabling, routing
and switching, interfaces, the different types of Internet services, and the fundamentals
of network architecture and performance.
Chapter 2: Building a Linux Gateway on a Single-Board Computer
In which we are introduced to the fascinating and adaptable world of Linux on
routerboards, such as those made by Soekris and PC Engines, and how Linux on
one of these little boards gives you more power and flexibility than commercial
gear costing many times as much.
Chapter 3: Building a Linux Firewall
Learn to use Linux’s powerful iptables packet filter to protect your network, with
complete recipes for border firewalls, single-host firewalls, getting services
through NAT (Network Address Translation), blocking external access to internal
services, secure remote access through your firewall, and how to safely test
new firewalls before deploying them on production systems.
Chapter 4: Building a Linux Wireless Access Point
You can use Linux and a routerboard (or any ordinary PC hardware) to build a
secure, powerful, fully featured wireless access point customized to meet your
needs, including state-of-the-art authentication and encryption, name services,
and routing and bridging.
Chapter 5: Building a VoIP Server with Asterisk
This chapter digs into the very guts of the revolutionary and popular Asterisk
VoIP server. Sure, these days, everyone has pretty point-and-click GUIs for managing
their iPBX systems, but you still need to understand what’s under the
hood. This chapter shows you how to install Asterisk and configure Asterisk
from scratch: how to create user’s extensions and voicemail, manage custom
greetings and messages, do broadcast voicemails, provision phones, set up a digital
receptionist, do PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) integration, do
pure VoIP, manage road warriors, and more.
Chapter 6: Routing with Linux
Linux’s networking stack is a powerhouse, and it includes advanced routing
capabilities. Here be recipes for building Linux-based routers, calculating
subnets (accurately and without pain), blackholing unwelcome visitors, using
static and dynamic routing, and for monitoring your hard-working little routers.
Chapter 7: Secure Remote Administration with SSH
OpenSSH is an amazing and endlessly useful implementation of the very secure
SSH protocol. It supports traditional password-based logins, password-less
public-key-based logins, and securely carries traffic over untrusted networks.
You’ll learn how to do all of this, plus how to safely log in to your systems
remotely, and how to harden and protect OpenSSH itself.
Chapter 8: Using Cross-Platform Remote Graphical Desktops
OpenSSH is slick and quick, and offers both text console and a secure X
Windows tunnel for running graphical applications. There are several excellent
programs (FreeNX, rdesktop, and VNC) that offer a complementary set of capabilities,
such as remote helpdesk, your choice of remote desktops, and Linux as a
Windows terminal server client. You can control multiple computers from a single
keyboard and monitor, and even conduct a class where multiple users view
or participate in the same remote session.
Chapter 9: Building Secure Cross-Platform Virtual Private Networks with OpenVPN
Everyone seems to want a secure, user-friendly VPN (Virtual Private Network).
But there is a lot of confusion over what a VPN really is, and a lot of commercial
products that are not true VPNs at all, but merely SSL portals to a limited number
of services. OpenVPN is a true SSL-based VPN that requires all endpoints to
be trusted, and that uses advanced methods for securing the connection and
keeping it securely encrypted. OpenVPN includes clients for Linux, Solaris, Mac
OS X, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and NetBSD, so it’s your one-stop VPN shop. You’ll
learn how to create and manage your own PKI (Public Key Infrastructure), which
is crucial for painless OpenVPN administration. And, you’ll learn how to safely
test OpenVPN, how to set up the server, and how to connect clients.
Chapter 10: Building a Linux PPTP VPN Server
This chapter covers building and configuring a Linux PPTP VPN server for
Windows and Linux clients; how to patch Windows clients so they have the necessary
encryption support, how to integrate with Active Directory, and how to
get PPTP through an iptables firewall
Chapter 11: Single Sign-on with Samba for Mixed Linux/Windows LANs
Using Samba as a Windows NT4-style domain controller gives you a flexible,
reliable, inexpensive mechanism for authenticating your network clients. You’ll
learn how to migrate from a Windows domain controller to Samba on Linux,
how to migrate Windows user accounts to Samba, integrate Linux clients with
Active Directory, and how to connect clients.
Chapter 12: Centralized Network Directory with OpenLDAP
An LDAP directory is an excellent mechanism on which to base your network
directory services. This chapter shows how to build an OpenLDAP directory
from scratch, how to test it, how to make changes, how to find things, how to
speed up lookups with smart indexing, and how to tune it for maximum
performance.
Chapter 13: Network Monitoring with Nagios
Nagios is a great network monitoring system that makes clever use of standard
Linux commands to monitor services and hosts, and to alert you when there are
problems. Status reports are displayed in nice colorful graphs on HTML pages
that can be viewed on any Web browser. Learn to monitor basic system health,
and common servers like DNS, Web, and mail servers, and how to perform
secure remote Nagios administration.
Chapter 14: Network Monitoring with MRTG
MRTG is an SNMP-aware network monitor, so theoretically it can be adapted to
monitor any SNMP-enabled device or service. Learn how to monitor hardware
and services, and how to find the necessary SNMP information to create custom
monitors.
Chapter 15: Getting Acquainted with IPv6
Ready or not, IPv6 is coming, and it will eventually supplant IPv4. Get ahead of
the curve by running IPv6 on your own network and over the Internet; learn why
those very long IPv6 addresses are actually simpler to manage than IPv4
addresses; learn how to use SSH over IPv6, and how to auto-configure clients
without DHCP.
Chapter 16: Setting Up Hands-Free Network Installations of New Systems
Fedora Linux and all of its relatives (Red Hat, CentOS, Mandriva, PC Linux OS,
and so forth), and Debian Linux and all of its descendants (Ubuntu, Mepis,
Knoppix, etc.) include utilities for creating and cloning customized installations,
and for provisioning new systems over the network. So, you can plug-in a PC,
and within a few minutes have a complete new installation all ready to go. This
chapter describes how to use ordinary installation ISO images for network installations
of Fedora, and how to create and maintain complete local Debian mirrors
efficiently.
Chapter 17: Linux Server Administration via Serial Console
When Ethernet goes haywire, the serial console will save the day, both locally
and remotely; plus, routers and managed switches are often administered via the
serial console. Learn how to set up any Linux computer to accept serial
connections, and how to use any Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows PC as a serial
terminal. You’ll also learn how to do dial-up server administration, and how to
upload files over your serial link.
Chapter 18: Running a Linux Dial-Up Server
Even in these modern times, dial-up networking is still important; we’re a long
way from universal broadband. Set up Internet-connection sharing over dial-up,
dial-on-demand, use cron to schedule dialup sessions, and set up multiple dialup
accounts.
Chapter 19: Troubleshooting Networks
Linux contains a wealth of power tools for diagnosing and fixing network
problems. You’ll learn the deep dark secrets of ping, how to use tcpdump and
Wireshark to eavesdrop on your own wires, how to troubleshoot the name and
mail server, how to discover all the hosts on your network, how to track problems
down to their sources, and how to set up a secure central logging server.
You’ll learn a number of lesser-known but powerful utilities such as fping,
httping, arping, and mtr, and how to transform an ordinary old laptop into your
indispensible portable network diagnostic-and-fixit tool.
