one of our main networking guys is leaving and it looks as if i may have to pick up a good amount of new knowledge. mainly i'm looking for some sources of information realted to unix system administration and network security.

i was at the barnes and noble last night and saw several titles, but wondered if there were some that are considred to be essential or outstanding.

my environment is academic and i'm a step or two removed from the main security group, so i'm looking for some basic fundamentals...types of attacks, firewall consturction, general security stuff, but preferably related to bsd unix systems.

anything come to mind? of course, i have access to the web and those resources, but am interested in the perspective of any admins here.

thanks...

The best book I've seen for that is "UNIX System Administration Handbook" by Evi Nemeth.  The third edition came-out recently.  It's expensive, but worth every penny.  It doesn't go that indepth on security, but it is the best book to learn system administration.  If it doesn't have what you need, then the odl standby of O'Reilly books and online info.z

O'Reilly's books:
TCP/IP Administration
Essential System Administration
Building Internet Firewalls
NFS & NIS (if you are in that type of enviornment)
DNS & Bind ( i think ed. 4 is out now)
Practical Unix and Internet security

Also Nice:
Unix Secure Shell (McGraw Hill)
Network Intrusion Detection and analysis Handbook (New Riders)

Newgroups:
comp.security.unix
comp.security.*
(groups.google.com is your friend here)

comp.unix.* (comp.unix.bsd.freebsd, etc)

Find another person in the network group who is willing to help you if you have questions about stuff.  Don't come on like you want his/her job, just that you are trying to improve your skills.
Set up a home machine using FreeBSD or Linux, or whatever is most common in your enviornment.  Try to use it every day as your main machine instead of anything else.

thanks zoom,

i've had the second ed. of the nemeth book for a couple years. it is one of the few unix books i have. i've always thought it to be one of the best i'd come across. but, since i'm not really into the stuff all the time, i wasn't sure how it compared to others.

actually, i noticed the third ed. at the store last night (purple cover) but didn't think i'd really outgrown the 2nd ed yet. we'll see.

but it's encouraging to think i've been reading from a good source all along. maybe i'll have learned more than i've given myself credit  for. [:\]

O'Reilly and Associates pubs have worked well for me. TCP/IP Network administration has saved my butt a number of times. HP unix is the platform I use daily.