Customer Rating:      Summary: Now this was a good book Comment: I have used PFCTL for a couple of years, but have needed a book for reference that was easy to understand. I found this book to be exactly that. I recommend this book to anyone that needs a good reference on pfctl firewall. I had some holes in my knowledge/understanding of pfctl that this book readily filled. Much appreciated, and will be used a lot.
Dan
Customer Rating:      Summary: Best source of pf NAT rule info Comment: I looked all over for pf NAT rule info I needed to attach a
subnet to the internet through my desktop computer. This book
had the exact pf NAT rule I needed, plus an example of the next
NAT rule I will need when I have more than one subnet connected
to my desktop and I want the subnets to be able to communicate
with each other. If you need to use NAT rules with pf, this is
your best source of information.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Good Start Comment: This is a good start to get familiar with PF. Apart from being a bit pricey, I found the examples in the back of the book severely lacking, as they don't take into account more advanced scenarios. There are a few spelling and grammatical errors that could be corrected in the next edition as well. I hope the next edition has a better expansion with real-world examples that would be useful to the IT professional: VoIP queues, dealing with advanced topics NAT->$ext_if, issues with RDR, etc.
Customer Rating:      Summary: A great intro for me... Comment: I had recently started to use OpenBSD and was interested in learning more about PF, so I consulted Amazon. This was the only book that came up so I decided to buy it. Surprisingly, it was an easy read; completed in 4 days. The book does a good job of first going through installing obsd and then explaining some basic firewall setups. Following the first couple chapters, Artymiak goes into detail on all the nifty tricks PF can pull off. It was a good stepping stone for me in building my own firewall. The appendix was quite usefull as well; which included basic pf.conf setups to get you off the ground. Artymiak is also involved in the obsd comunity as well, which is great. The only thing I wished he had talked about was CARP. Maby in a future Edition?
Overall a great book for a PF beginner with some unix experience
Customer Rating:      Summary: Excellent hands-on guide to Pf on OpenBSD or other BSDs Comment: I was an early buyer of the first edition of 'Building Firewalls with OpenBSD and PF' (BFWOAP), but I am confident my opinion applies to the second edition as well. BFWOAP is the perfect book for anyone looking to build an firewall with Pf. Since Pf is now part of FreeBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFly BSD, this book will be helpful to anyone looking to use Pf on those platforms.
I like the direct approach taken by author Jacek Artymiak. With few exceptions he ensures the reader is provided enough descriptions and working examples to implement Pf in an operational environment. Too often authors discuss important topics but fail to follow through on implementation. I was able to follow the author's instructions and build a variety of Pf firewalls. I found sections describing packet normalization, packet redirection and forwarding (via 'dup-to'), and prioritization to be most helpful.
The author's blog indicates he is working on a new firewall book that expands beyond OpenBSD and Pf. I hope he is working with an established publisher to ensure his next book has a wider audience.
If you're mainly interested in creating firewalls using Pf, this book is for you. If you want to know more about OpenBSD, I recommend Michael Lucas' 'Absolute OpenBSD' or 'Secure Architectures with OpenBSD' by Brandon Palmer and Jose Nazario.
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