Customer Reviews

Microsoft Windows Server(TM) 2003 PKI and Certificate Security

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This bundled set of books contains just about everything it is possible to know about Windows Server 2003. Well, maybe not everything, but everything you can include in four thousand six hundred and fifty pages, yes, 4650 pages.

In one slipcase, there are eight separate Microsoft manuals:

Windows Internals (4th Edition)
Windows Group Policy guide
Windows Security Resource Kit (2nd Edition)
Windows Server 2003 Performance Guide
Windows Server 2003 Troubleshooting Guide
Windows Registry Guide (2nd Edition)
Windows Administrator's Automation Toolkit
Windows Server 2003 Tools and Digital Resources (on CD)

The CD contains more material than the rest of the books put together including (guaranteed to be true as it contains all of the manuals just listed in eBook form),
More than 300 esential tools and utilities,
And collections of Technical References on:

Active Director
Core Operating System
Group Policy
High Availability and Scalability
Networking Collection
Storage Technologies
Windows Security

It would be pointless to talk about the contents of each book here as they are already described under their individual titles. What you get in the bundle is: lower price than when purchased individually, extra material on the CD, and a cardboard slipcase to keep them in.

Worth every penny. This is a massive collection of harder to find resources to help you in your job as a Windows Server 2003 Systems Administrator. Time saving tools, tips, scripts and other resources will make this purchase pay for itself. The included CD ROM has all the material plus additional books in ebook format, so you can take it with you as a ready reference. If you are studying MCSA/MCSE, this resource will help you understand the technology as well as provide you with better tools so that you can apply your skills more efficiently.

The Windows Server 2003 PKI and Certificate Security book will demystify PKI and certificate based security implementations for you. It will be very helpful to anyone who wants to learn what PKI can do for them or needs to know the specifics of how to implement it in their network for many uses from large networks to the small office. For many the thought of PKI, intimidates them. It should not as it really is not that difficult and can improve your security tremendously over traditional password based authentication and allow use of strong encryption and digital signing [proof of entity and integrity]. PKI is used to generate public and private keypairs for use in applications such as L2TP VPN, IPSEC, 802.1X authentication for wireless and wired networks, EFS file encryption, application signing, secure email encryption and signing, SSL website security, and smart cards.

The book starts out with the basic concepts of PKI and the use of symmetric and asymmetric encrytpion and how they work together in PKI. It also explains digital signiatures - the other big use for certificates/private keys. It is written to be very understandable and the user or admin that has little understanding of PKI should have no problem learing the content and implemeting it. It does assume a basic understanding of Active Directory for Enterprise Certificate Authority use and also covers stand alone Certificate Authority. The book is also written so that you can refer to indivudual chapters such as the excellent chapter on how to implement 802.1X wireless if you do not need to know other material covered.

PKI hierarchy is well covered whether you need to install a single CA, levels of CA's in your network, or even how to setup cross trusts to other CA hierarchies for full trust or conditional trust. If you have a Windows 2000 forest you can learn how to prep your forest schema for using a Windows 2003 Enterprise CA to take advantage of the new features such as autoenrollent for XP clients, configurable version 2 certificate templates, and archivable private keys for certificates used for encryption.

Other important topics such as how to install a CA, configure a CAPolicy.inf file, use the certutil utility for many tasks, obtaining and implementing your own OID, role separation for those that need it, CRL and AIA publication points which is very important to the success of your PKI particularly if you are going to use an offline CA or for computers not on your network that use your certificates, configuring an offline CA and securing it, using HSM's - hardware security modules to protect the CA's private key, how to configure version 2 templates, configuring Group Policy for autoenrollment, configuring auditing, using Web Enrollment, how to backup and restore your CA and disaster recovery, how to publish certificates to Active Directory using certutil or PKIhealth tool, the concept of "chaining" to a trusted root CA [very important], and more. With the book comes a lot of helpful tools and scripts such as an example of a CAPolicy.inf and numerous scripts including enroll.vbs that can be used to enroll users on Windows 2000 computers for certificates via logon script.

The last part of the book is about application specific use of certificates such as for EFS, email, VPN, smart cards, and more. The chapters cover the advantages of using certifcates for each application, how to plan it, and the specifics of how to implement including how to configure certificate templates and issue certificates to users and computers in in a step by step fashion to have you up and running for that application. There are many tricks and traps in the book that can save a user a lot of time such as verifying that a VPN server is in the RAS and IAS servers group as one example. These tips show that the book is much more than a cut and paste of white papers as some books are. Then end of each chapter has links to many related KB articles, white papers, and RFC's for those that want more information.

I found the Windows Server 2003 PKI and Certificate Security book puts it all together for Windows 2003 PKI from understanding the concept of PKI to putting it to use in your own network to greatly enhance your security. Microsoft has many excellent white papers and articles on PKI for Windows 2003 but for many this book will be all that is needed and an invaluable resource for those that use it, plan to use it, or want to know more about it.

I am learning about Windows Server for the first time and bought this set as a comprehensive guide. It is not for the novice or the faint hearted. It is tough to follow and goes in to great depth at times. The books are uneven in standard with some just taking you through the wizards and others assuming you can program. Useful to have but requires a lot of effort from the reader. You will need to work hard at it.

Very in depth - covers multiple subjects and has pleanty of examples and frameworks to help you with your migration.

Also does an excellent job stressing the need to pilot and test - with one volume dedicated to setting up a test environment and using it to plan your deployment.

If you are looking at Windows Server 2003, rolling out Active Directory or just managing a windows environment I highly recommend this referece set.

This set provides the "missing" instruction book for Server 2003. It is full of helps, hints, and workarounds, written by experts. I cannot imagine trying to maintain a Server 2003 network of any size without these books on your shelf.

Brian Komar tackles, what I've seen countless other authors refer to as a difficult to understand subject matter. It appearantly took a whole team at Microsoft to explain it to him, but it looks like he got it right. Of the many books I've read that address certificates and PKI this is the only one I've seen that presents a complete picture, where I didn't walk away wondering... but how does this part of it work, or why did they do that this way.

I would Highly recomend this book to any one who works with Microsoft Server 2003. This book is a MUST READ for all systems engineers especially if you implement
-WIFI
-RRAS and or IAS (RADIUS)
-Exchange
-IIS with SSL

RT
MCT, MCSE, MCDBA, MCSA, Master Instructor MS Office

Brian Komar is one of the top security minds on the continent. I have attended many of his security sessions at Microsoft technical training seminars, and this book has a prominent case on my bookshelf. There is a great deal of confusion regarding proper implementation of PKI's, and Brian Komar cuts through that Gordian Knot with a chain saw. This is the ONLY book I'll recommend on Microsoft PKI implementation.

I have to say that this book is simply amazing. I have searched the longest to clearly understand not just about PKI, but actually how to implement it, and was always referred to tombs of mathematical theory and such. This book demystifies PKI infrastructure in clear and concise explanations (but not overkill though), and has a lot of material on how to practically implement a variety of PKI architectures that can fit small businesses to huge enterprise corporations.

Implementing this stuff involves more than simple button clicking. What I really appreciate is that there are really delves into pre-installation configuration (CAPolicy.inf) and also post installation (publishing AIA/CDP to Active Directory either through command line or graphical snap-in). I've looked at other security books that touch on this topic, but they are either/both incomplete or sometimes in areas incorrect. This help set me straight.

The bottom line is that this is indeed the best book on this topic of implementing PKI infrastructure (certificate authorities, etc.) within Windows environment.

This could never be called a casual read, but it is a good read. I've spent much time in the Group Policy book, pair that book with Stanek's Windows Server 2003 Inside Out and you have everything you need to master Active Directory and Windows. Recommended.