Customer Reviews

Essential Check Point™ FireWall-1® NG: An Installation, Configuration, and Troubleshooting Guide

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Would have been nice if PhoneBoy was able to include details of R55 in this book. It does skim over some more complicated subjects such as ClusterXL but great for a novice admin.

Look forward to your next book Daemon!

This is a how-to book clearly intended primarily for those who have already decided to install firewall 1 software on their systems. There are several things I like about this book, not the least of which is the author's honest, straightforward approach to his subject matter.

I also really like the extensive use of FAQ's to resolve many of the challenges likely to be encountered in implementing your firewall protection. But what makes that especially helpful is the comprehensive table of contents listing just the FAQ's.

My favorite chapter is the one devoted to planning your firewall system. It's thorough, including all of the items that should be considered in the planning process. For my money, this chapter alone is probably worth the cost of the book.

My advice is to read this book before you start spending money on the software. Follow all of the advice about planning. Then use the book to help you make the most of what you buy.

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Title: Essential Check Point FireWall-1 NG - An Installation, Configuration, and Troubleshooting Guide
Author: Dameon D. Welch-Abernathy (a.k.a. "PhoneBoy")
ISBN: 0-321-18061-5
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Where: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk
Pages: 647
Reviewer: Andrew Barnes
Date: 05/03/2004
Rating: 5*
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Introduction:
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Following on from the success of "Essential Check Point FireWall-1", Dameon Welch-Abernathy (a.k.a. "PhoneBoy") has provided us with a timely update to this already indispensable title in the form of his latest book "Essential Check Point FireWall-1 NG"; especially timely given the End of Service Life of v4.1, and the latest security advisories.

With around 80% new content, this work is a major revision, and once again clearly deserving of its title.
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Review:
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If not one of the worlds leading independent authorities on the installation, configuration and management of Check Point FireWall-1 products, PhoneBoy would have to be one of the best known. His web site - http://www.phoneboy.com - is a treasure-chest of hints, tips, "FAQs", "how-to's" and "gotcha's". Couple this latest book, with his "well-thumbed" site, and you have at your finger-tips the definitive guide to Check Point FireWall-1 NG.

The first thing you'll notice when you open the book is the size of Table of Contents - including the FAQ list. While this statement might seem out of place in a review of an IT book, it straightaway signifies the volume of knowledge and information that this guide contains. In my opinion, PhoneBoy has recognised that outside of initial installation of Check Point, the next time that most of us go to a book or web site is when there's a problem, or you're about to do something major - like upgrade. This comprehensive, up-front list gives you exactly what you're looking for. And if it isn't in the book - your answers are only a mouse-click away.

Right up front PhoneBoy points out his personal "platform bias", if only from a "pathname convention" perspective - UNIX. The second thing you'll notice in this book is that given his stated bias, PhoneBoy has taken the time and effort to ensure that this book is valid for all deployable platforms. Where appropriate, PhoneBoy has taken a side-step in his rhythm to pay particular attention to a platform-specific (or other significant) point.

Each chapter in this book begins with a list of expectations a reader can expect from reading the chapter, and finishes with a summary. Especially in the more advanced chapters, PhoneBoy has also included sample configurations, FAQs, and/or troubleshooting guides. It would be my view that he has achieved the goal of each chapter with flying colors.

One of the main drawing-points of this book is that the target audience could be anyone from a beginner to an experienced Check Point FireWall-1 NG Administrator. It starts from the basic items such as basic installation and configuration of FW-1/NG through to the more advanced topics of HA/Clustering, VPNs, and INSPECT (a programming language for Check Point's Stateful Inspection engine in FireWall-1).

The level of detail undertaken by PhoneBoy, for almost every menu, dialog box, option available, is superb. It is what makes "Essential Check Point FireWall-1 NG"... *ahem*... essential, for every FW-1/NG Administrator. It's always going to be the little things that make or break a change, and with every option now explained for you in a clear easy-to-understand manner, you.re understanding of the impact your change is about to make is made that much clearer.

Ironically, the one thing that *some* might find frustrating is in fact this level of detail. This is more of a problem for someone looking for information on a specific value, option, issue, etc. As is the nature of such a detailed resource in its hardcopy form, without the benefit of a search-engine it may sometimes take that little longer to find the specific information you're looking for. But hey, isn't that what the contents and index are for!

While I shouldn't have been surprised, it was nice to see that the very last page in the book was a link to Informit's online service. With any luck, one day we may even see PhoneBoy's book online too.

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Summary:

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They say that the best way to learn is from your mistakes, but with "Essential Check Point FireWall-1 NG" by your side, you can hopefully save yourself the time, effort and embarrassment by drawing on PhoneBoy.s 8 years of experience and knowledge.

If it's "the detail maketh the book", then "'Essential Check Point FireWall-1 NG' maketh the firewall". As reference books go, if you're planning to, or already are, administering FW-1/NG, then this book is your first (if not last) port of call. Its clear, comprehensive content, supplemented by PhoneBoy's web site, makes it a definitive "must-have" guide.
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If you must install or work with Check Point FW-1 NG, this book is a must have. I am a consultant working with a customer who was upgrading from 4.1 to NG. We had numerous small issues, many of which were not effectively addressed by CP support. The new Firewall was up and running flawlessly within a day of buying this book. Dameon ("Phoneboy") is the ultimate expert on all things Check Point, and he is an excellent communicator who has written a very easy to read book. This book will also stay close at hand as a reference anytime a FW-1 question comes up. I have to buy another copy, since the customer above refused to give it back after seeing how useful it was.

Each chapter of the book starts off with describing what the reader will learn or accomplish by reading that chapter. This sort of information is helpful for allowing readers to skip information that may not be useful to them and find the answers they seek. Many of the chapters also contain FAQ's and sample configurations and illustrations to help reinforce the information.

The book tries to cover a very broad scope and apply to a wide audience. It contains information all the way from holding the readers hand if they are new to Checkpoint Firewall-1 NG to providing detailed troubleshooting and configuration steps for experienced Checkpoint administrators.

I have never administered a Checkpoint firewall personally, but I found the information mostly straight forward and understandable. Again, this is not a book one would typically read casually, but for anyone who administers a Checkpoint firewall or is looking at installing a Checkpoint Firewall-1 NG system this is an excellent source of information.

(...)

Updated from his previous book on Firewall-1 for the current version, Mr. Welch-Abernathy's new book on the Internet's premier firewall product provides a wealth of information for every Check Point administrator no matter how well seasoned.

Anyone who's ever taken the Check Point classes and/or read Check Point's 'mostly white paper' handbooks can tell you how difficult it can often be to figure out either what some specific configuration option does or how to implement various features. With Check Point the path to success involves a lot more than the standard amount of trial-and-error. Many of us doing IT security in a corporate environment simply don't have the time to play Check Point's game of "Clue." This book is our salvation.

Now there's a definitive insider's guide to planning, installing, configuring, and maintaining the newest version of the world's #1 firewall: Check Point(tm) FireWall-1 ® Next Generation(tm).

Leading Check Point support authority Dameon Welch-Abernathy (a.k.a. PhoneBoy) offers exclusive hands-on tips, techniques, checklists, and detailed sample configurations you can use right now to improve reliability, efficiency, and manageability in your Check Point environment. The author's previous Check Point FireWall-1 guide became an instant bestseller, earning the praise of security professionals worldwide.

This new book has been thoroughly revamped to reflect Check Point FireWall-1 NG's powerful new features, and it includes even more expert solutions from PhoneBoy's FireWall-1 FAQ, the Web's #1 independent Check Point support site. Whether you're a security/network architect, administrator, or manager, you'll find it indispensable.

Whether you're running FireWall-1 NG on UNIX or Windows platforms, this book brings together expert guidance for virtually every challenge you'll face: building your rulebase, logging and alerting, remote management, user authentication, inbound/outbound content restriction, managing NAT environments, building site-to-site VPNs with SecuRemote, even INSPECT programming.

Welch-Abernathy also covers high availability in detail, identifying proven solutions for the challenges of implementing multiple firewalls in parallel.

There is a book called `the Best Damn Firewall Book Period'. But it is the wrong title, this is the Best Damn Firewall Book.

The author bleeds info about fw-1.

If you need one fw-1 book, this is it!