Mastering FreeBSD and OpenBSD Security (Paperback)

FreeBSD and OpenBSD are increasingly gaining traction in educational institutions, non-profits, and corporations worldwide because they provide significant security advantages over Linux. Although a lot can be said for the robustness, clean organization, and stability of the BSD operating systems, security is one of the main reasons system administrators use these two platforms.

There are plenty of books to help you get a FreeBSD or OpenBSD system off the ground, and all of them touch on security to some extent, usually dedicating a chapter to the subject. But, as security is commonly named as the key concern for today's system administrators, a single chapter on the subject can't provide the depth of information you need to keep your systems secure.

FreeBSD and OpenBSD are rife with security "building blocks" that you can put to use, and Mastering FreeBSD and OpenBSD Security shows you how. Both operating systems have kernel options and filesystem features that go well beyond traditional Unix permissions and controls. This power and flexibility is valuable, but the colossal range of possibilities need to be tackled one step at a time. This book walks you through the installation of a hardened operating system, the installation and configuration of critical services, and ongoing maintenance of your FreeBSD and OpenBSD systems.

Using an application-specific approach that builds on your existing knowledge, the book provides sound technical information on FreeBSD and Open-BSD security with plenty of real-world examples to help you configure and deploy a secure system. By imparting a solid technical foundation as well as practical know-how, it enables administrators to push their server's security to the next level. Even administrators in other environments--like Linux and Solaris--can find useful paradigms to emulate.

Written by security professionals with two decades of operating system experience, Mastering FreeBSD and OpenBSD Security features broad and deep explanations of how how to secure your most critical systems. Where other books on BSD systems help you achieve functionality, this book will help you more thoroughly secure your deployments.

Table of Contents:

Preface

Part I. Security Foundation

1. The Big Picture

     What Is System Security?

     Identifying Risks

     Responding to Risk

     Security Process and Principles

     System Security Principles

     Wrapping Up

     Resources

2. BSD Security Building Blocks

     Filesystem Protections

     Tweaking a Running Kernel: sysctl

     The Basic Sandbox: chroot

     Jail: Beyond chroot

     Inherent Protections

     OS Tuning

     Wrapping Up

     Resources

3. Secure Installation and Hardening

     General Concerns

     Installing FreeBSD

     FreeBSD Hardening: Your First Steps

     Installing OpenBSD

     OpenBSD Hardening: Your First Steps

     Post-Upgrade Hardening

     Wrapping Up

     Resources

4. Secure Administration Techniques

     Access Control

     Security in Everyday Tasks

     Upgrading

     Security Vulnerability Response

     Network Service Security

     Monitoring System Health

     Wrapping Up

     Resources

Part II. Deployment Situations

5. Creating a Secure DNS Server

     The Criticality of DNS

     DNS Software

     Installing BIND

     Installing djbdns

     Operating BIND

     Operating djbdns

     Wrapping Up

     Resources

6. Building Secure Mail Servers

     Mail Server Attacks

     Mail Architecture

     Mail and DNS

     SMTP

     Mail Server Configurations

     Sendmail

     Postfix

     qmail

     Mail Access

     Wrapping Up

     Resources

7. Building a Secure Web Server

     Web Server Attacks

     Web Architecture

     Apache

     thttpd

     Advanced Web Servers with Jails

     Wrapping Up

     Resources

8. Firewalls

     Firewall Architectures

     Host Lockdown

     The Options: IPFW Versus PF

     Basic IPFW Configuration

     Basic PF Configuration

     Handling Failure

     Wrapping Up

     Resources

9. Intrusion Detection

     No Magic Bullets

     IDS Architectures

     NIDS on BSD

     Snort

     ACID

     HIDS on BSD

     Wrapping Up

     Resources

Part III. Auditing and Incident Response

10. Managing the Audit Trails

     System Logging

     Logging via syslogd

     Securing a Loghost

     logfile Management

     Automated Log Monitoring

     Automated Auditing Scripts

     Wrapping Up

     Resources

11. Incident Response and Forensics

     Incident Response

     Forensics on BSD

     Digging Deeper with the Sleuth Kit

     Wrapping Up

     Resources

Index