Cool Stuff on the CD-ROM The CD-ROM has some special tools and information, including: A list of all URLs from this book (just click and go) Bastille a utility to tighten security on Linux and Unix machines Nmap a port scanner Snort an open source network intrusion detection system OpenSSH a free implementation of the SSH suite of network connectivity tools OpenSSL an open source toolkit implementing the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) protocols These things should get you started right away. Unfortunately, this approach of placing things on CD-ROM has its disadvantages. For example, you will need many additional tools to reap the maximum benefit from this book: A Web browser An FTP client Archiving utilities Document readers A compiler (if you want to compile source code) In the next few sections, prior to discussing various methods of using this book, I'd like to provide locations where you can obtain these tools for free. FTP Clients Although you can download most of the files mentioned in this book via a Web browser, it might be wise to have an FTP client on hand. Table 2.1 provides locations for FTP clients for most operating systems. Table 2.1. FTP Clients for Various Operating Systems | Client | OS | Location | EmTec FTP | OS/2 | http://www.musthave.com | Fetch | Macintosh | http://www.dartmouth.edu/pages/softdev/fetch.html | FtpTool | Linux | http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/FByName.html | Gibbon FTP | OS/2 | http://www.gibbon.com/catalog/catalog.html | NetFinder | Macintosh | http://www.ozemail.com.au/~pli/netfinder/ | WS_FTP | Windows | http://www.ipswitch.com | Archive File Formats If you're lucky, you have a 1.5Mbps or faster connection to the Internet. Sadly, many users don't. Instead, many folks still surf using a 28.8 or 56k modem connection, and at that speed, the Internet is pathetically slow. When Webmasters provide files for download, they generally compress them, and by doing so reduce the file size. The smaller the file, the quicker it will download. These compressed files are referred to as archives, or archived files. Archives are created using compression packages. Unfortunately, there is no universally used compression format. Therefore, files compressed on a Macintosh might be difficult to decompress on an IBM-PC compatible. Because many online references in this book are archived files, you must obtain tools that can uncompress all archive formats. Table 2.2 provides locations for various archiving tools. Table 2.2. Popular Archive Utilities | Utility | Platform | Description and Location | Winzip | Windows | Winzip decompresses the following archive formats: ARC, ARJ, BinHex, gzip, LZH, MIME, TAR, UNIX compress, and Uuencode. Winzip is therefore the industry-standard archive utility on the Windows platform. It is available at http://www.winzip.com/. | Zip98Plus | Windows | Zip98Plus handles the following archive formats: ARC, ARJ, ARJSFX, CAB, GZIP, LHA, LHASFX, RAR, TAR, ZIP, ZIPSFX, and ZOO. Zip98Plus is available at http://download.mycomputer.com/detail/0/69.html. | StuffIt | Macintosh | StuffIt decompresses the following archive formats: ARC, Arj, BinHex, gzip, Macbinary, StuffIt, Uuencoded, and ZIP. StuffIt is available at http://www.aladdinsys.com/expander/index.html. | Text File Formats and Document Readers When compiling this edition, we tried to favor sites that offer documents in HTML (which is a fairly universal format). However, that wasn't always possible. Thankfully, many site authors are now providing their documents in PDF, a document format invented by Adobe. PDF is architecture-neutral and to read a PDF document, all you need is the free PDF reader for your platform. Note PDF stands for Portable Document Format. After years of research, Adobe developed PDF to satisfy the need for a universal typesetting technique. PostScript preceded PDF and was very powerful. However, some PostScript documents require a PostScript printer. PDF remedies this problem. You might be wondering why all technical reports and white papers aren't written in ASCII. After all, ASCII is a universally recognized standard, and easily readable on any platform. The reason is this: You cannot embed graphs, sketches, or photographs in ASCII text documents. Because many technical reports have diagrams (often of network topology), ASCII is poorly suited for this task. You might also wonder why all technical reports or white papers aren't written in HTML (especially because anyone on the Internet can read HTML). There are several reasons. First, although HTML specifications have made great progress in recent years, most HTML packages don't adhere strictly to those standards, nor do they force HTML authors to do so. HTML doesn't always look the same from platform to platform, or even from browser to browser. Also and this is a major factor writing a document in HTML can require knowledge of HTML tags. Technical report authors might not have time to learn about these tags. True, WYSIWYG HTML editors exist, but even using these takes more time than simply writing out a document in your favorite word processor. (Some advances have been made with export filters. For example, PageMaker and Microsoft Word both let you export documents to HTML. Again, these filters aren't perfect, and there's no guarantee that the document will come out precisely as it was designed.) You must be prepared to accommodate different file formats. That is easier than it sounds. Most commercial word processor manufacturers are aware of this situation. Therefore, they make readers available to the public. Readers are programs that will read a document written in this or that format. (For example, Adobe makes a PDF reader, and Microsoft makes a Word reader.) Readers are generally free. Table 2.3 provides a list of locations for popular word-processing readers. Table 2.3. Readers for Popular Word-Processing Formats | Reader | Description and Location | Adobe Acrobat | Adobe Acrobat Reader decodes PDF files. Acrobat Reader is available for DOS, Windows, Windows 95, Windows NT, UNIX, Macintosh, and OS/2. You can get it at http://www.adobe.com/supportservice/custsupport/download.html. | Gsview | GSView is a utility that reads PostScript and GhostScript files (*.PS). GSView is available for OS/2, Windows, Windows 3.11, Windows NT, and Windows NT. Get it at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/. | PowerPoint Viewer | PowerPoint Viewer is for viewing presentations generated in Microsoft PowerPoint (*.PPT). The PowerPoint Viewer for Windows 95 is available at http://www.gallaudet.edu/~standard/presentation/pptvw32.exe. PowerPoint Viewer for Windows NT is available at http://www.gallaudet.edu/~standard/presentation/pptvw32.exe | |