Essential Checkpoint Firewall-1: An Installation, Configuration, and Troubleshooting Guide

Dameon Welch-Abernathy earned fame among administrators of FireWall-1 for his thorough and highly detailed Web site about Check Point's flagship security product. The site should remain on those administrators' hot lists, but they'll want to absorb the copious knowledge in Welch-Abernathy's Essential Check Point FireWall-1 before delving into his late-breaking online material. This book is fantastic. It's by far the best book about FireWall-1, exceeding in quality even Check Point's own manuals for administrators of its product. This is the book you need to have on hand as you learn to use what's widely regarded as the best firewall software on the market. The author, known on his site as PhoneBoy, explains FireWall-1 with clarity, depth, and eminent practicality.

Welch-Abernathy's presentation style is characterized by conciseness; practically every word and illustration he's included advances his goal of explaining how to administer the software. Once in a while, he'll go so far as to declare something self-explanatory and therefore not document it. This is risky--it's hard to predict what a given reader will find intuitive--but he's done this sparingly. The author's coverage of virtual private networks (VPNs) is particularly praiseworthy. By following his lead, you'll be able to bring up secure links among sites, and understand why the system works. Whether you're reading cover-to-cover in order to learn as much as possible, or using the index to locate the problem-solving trick you need, this book ranks among the best. --David Wall

Topics covered: Check Point FireWall-1 for administrators, including those administrators with responsibility for designing and installing a firewall system. Rule design and implementation, logging, and authentication get attention, and coverage of network address translation (NAT) and virtual private networks (VPNs) is outstanding. There's coverage of SecuRemote and Secure Client, too.