Unix Secure Shell (McGraw-Hill Tools Series)

By Anne H. Carasik

Ssh (secure shell) is an encryption program that allows a UNIX administrator to log into another computer over a network. This book shows readers how to log in to their system from anywhere, and how... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0071349332
• ISBN13: 9780071349338
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
• Length: 339 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Good book; reads like a software manual

I have to disagree with the previous reviewers; this is a very useful book. In style it reads like a software manual--but don't take me wrong! I mean that the author provides lots of details, exactly the sort of information I was looking for before installing the program. I felt that the author's walkthrough of the "configure" process, which another reviewer criticized as unnecessary, was nicely annotated and gave an excellent feel for the process of installing SSH. I'll admit that a lot of people have seen "configure" do its stuff a thousand times before and can skip this section. For relatively inexperienced sysadmins, however, this kind of detail is reassuring and valuable.The author writes as a person who understands the operation of the programs in detail; sometimes you get little tidbits that seem oddly out of place in a user's guide (such as the discussion of child process forking in Chapter 3, which seemed to have offended one reviewer so badly), but which I thought were clearly explained. I didn't notice any technical errors in the author's explanation of clients, servers, and daemons, and I write code like this for a living. It's a good explanation, probably lots more detail than most people ever wanted to know, and it might be better relegated to an appendix, but there's nothing wrong with it, and I enjoyed it. Lighten up, people; if you don't care about the details, then skip it. (Note to the author: if you ever decide to write a book on client/server programming, call me!)It's true that you can find a lot of the same information in scattered FAQs and mailing list archives on the net. But I've seen a growing number of HOW-TO's and web pages out there, set up by pioneers who struggled with earlier versions of SSH; after finally getting it to work, they wanted to spare others the pain they encountered while at the same time saying, "Look! I got it to work!" This book brings a lot of useful information together in one place. For the next edition, more details on Windows NT clients would be appreciated, but for Unix, this is THE book for ssh right now."I want my fourty (sic) dollars back," is a terribly devastating (and very funny!) review, but I don't think it's deserved. I almost didn't buy this book for a long time, after reading the early, poor reviews. I'm mad at myself now for not buying it sooner--it's a good book and doesn't deserve the poor press.This is the only book available on SSH right now; it's right up to date, and it's well-written. I highly recommend it.

Great Beginner's Reference!

I disagree with the three people previous to me who reviewed this book. I found it to be a great beginner's reference for compiling, installing and configuring Secure Shell (SSH), as well as learning some of the additional tricks it can do.I have been using SSH for about two years, on AIX and Solaris. I learned a lot from Chapters 8 & 9 about using SSH through firewalls as a sort of "poor man's" VPN. The book also spells out the difference between the 1.5 and 2.0 protocols.UNIX System Administrators with little or no knowledge of SSH will find this to be an excellent, step-by-step guide. Experienced users may learn something they didn't know. There are some minor errors, but overall they have no impact on the usefulness of the book.Developers who are looking for tips on modifying, enhancing or otherwise hacking SSH code will not find much here to help them.A book like this is long overdue and I'm glad somebody finally wrote it.