Virtualization with VMware ESX Server or Snort Intrusion Detection and Prevention Toolkit

Virtualization with VMware ESX Server

Author: Al Muller

This book will detail the default and custom installation of VMware's ESx server as well as basic and advanced virtual machine configurations. It will also discuss the requirements for a server virtualization and consolidation project and the cost savings surrounding such an effort.

Furthermore, the book will provide a thorough understanding of the benefits of a virtual infrastructure and a comprehensive examination of how VMware eases administration and lowers overall IT costs.

Lastly, the book delivers a thorough understanding of the virtual evolution which is underway in many IT organizations and how the reader will benefit from shifting from the physical to a virtual

* A detailed resource on the default and custom installation of VMware's ESx server
* Covers all the requirements for a server virtualization and consolidation project and the cost savings surrounding such an effort
* Delivers a thorough understanding of the virtual evolution occuring in the IT industry

Table of Contents:

Ch. 1	The joy of ESX	1
Ch. 2	Installation	17
Ch. 3	Configuring a virtual machine, gold builds, and clones	43
Ch. 4	Advanced configurations	73
Ch. 5	Virtual networking	101
Ch. 6	Physical-to-virtual migrations	137
Ch. 7	Server consolidation	161
Ch. 8	Cool tools for a virtual infrastructure	197
Ch. 9	Administering a virtual infrastructure	223
Ch. 10	Best practices, gotchas, and common problems	337
Ch. 11	VMware under the covers	357
Ch. 12	Backup strategies for ESX server and virtual machines	379
Ch. 13	Common and necessary command-line interface (CLI) commands	397
Ch. 14	A peek at the future : it's totally cool	439

New interesting textbook: Financial Theory and Corporate Policy or Global Business

Snort Intrusion Detection and Prevention Toolkit

Author: Brian Caswell

This all new book covering the brand new Snort version 2.6 from members of the Snort developers team.

This fully integrated book, CD, and Web toolkit covers everything from packet inspection to optimizing Snort for speed to using the most advanced features of Snort to defend even the largest and most congested enterprise networks. Leading Snort experts Brian Caswell, Andrew Baker, and Jay Beale analyze traffic from real attacks to demonstrate the best practices for implementing the most powerful Snort features.

The accompanying CD contains examples from real attacks allowing readers test their new skills. The book will begin with a discussion of packet inspection and the progression from intrusion detection to intrusion prevention. The authors provide examples of packet inspection methods including: protocol standards compliance, protocol anomaly detection, application control, and signature matching. In addition, application-level vulnerabilities including Binary Code in HTTP headers, HTTP/HTTPS Tunneling, URL Directory Traversal, Cross-Site Scripting, and SQL Injection will also be analyzed. Next, a brief chapter on installing and configuring Snort will highlight various methods for fine tuning your installation to optimize Snort performance including hardware/OS selection, finding and eliminating bottlenecks, and benchmarking and testing your deployment. A special chapter also details how to use Barnyard to improve the overall performance of Snort. Next, best practices will be presented allowing readers to enhance the performance of Snort for even the largest and most complex networks. The next chapter reveals the inner workings of Snort by analyzing the sourcecode. The next several chapters will detail how to write, modify, and fine-tune basic to advanced rules and pre-processors. Detailed analysis of real packet captures will be provided both in the book and the accompanying CD. Several examples for optimizing output plugins will then be discussed including a comparison of MySQL and PostrgreSQL. Best practices for monitoring Snort sensors and analyzing intrusion data follow with examples of real world attacks using: ACID, BASE, SGUIL, SnortSnarf, Snort_stat.pl, Swatch, and more.

The last part of the book contains several chapters on active response, intrusion prevention, and using Snort's most advanced capabilities for everything from forensics and incident handling to building and analyzing honey pots. Data from real world attacks will be presented throughout this part as well as on the accompanying CD.

* This fully integrated book, CD, and Web toolkit covers everything all in one convenient package
* It is authored by members of the Snort team and it is packed full of their experience and expertise
* Includes full coverage of the brand new Snort version 2.6, packed full of all the latest information