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The Complete Cisco VPN Configuration Guide Review by Brad Bledsoe
Excellent resource for security professionals
Richard Deal's book, The Complete Cisco VPN Configuration Guide, sets out to provide a comprehensive reference for networking professionals designing, deploying, and managing VPN solutions. This book covers the foundational information as well as step by step guides to configuring VPN solutions on Cisco VPN Concentrators, software and hardware clients, Cisco IOS routers, and Cisco PIX and ASA appliances.
The book is broken down into 6 parts: VPNs, Concentrators, Clients, IOS Routers, PIX Firewalls, and a Case Study. The VPN chapters provide the reader with an excellent foundation in VPNs. These chapters cover topics such as VPN types and topologies, technologies used to establish VPNs, as well as VPN implementations, such as IPsec, PPTP, L2TP, SSL. The next section focuses on the Cisco VPN Concentrators. Mr. Deal provides information on the Cisco 3000 series of VPN concentrators as well as the features of various software releases. The next few chapters focus on different deployment scenarios. These scenarios include remote access with IPsec, Remote access with PPTP, L2TP, and WebVPN (SSL), and site-to-site. The final chapters of the concentrator section cover management and troubleshooting. The next section covers software (Cisco and Microsoft) and hardware (Cisco) VPN clients. The fourth section focuses on Cisco IOS Routers. This section follows a similar layout to the concentrator section providing details about site-to-site and remote access VPN connections as well as a troubleshooting chapter at the end. It does highlight the differences in the configuration as well. As with the concentrators, Mr. Deal include specific product information. While helpful in dealing with existing equipment, it quickly will become obsolete as Cisco EOS/EOL equipment and software from these lists. It might have been more practical to provide URL references to Cisco's website. The fifth section covers VPN deployments with the Cisco PIX and ASA security appliances. Again, the layout is consistent with the IOS Router and Concentrator sections. The final section is a case study which brings together most of the concepts covered in the book.
This book is an excellent reference on VPNs. It should be in every networking professional's personal library who designs, deploys, and manages a VPN solution. The diagrams are clear and easy to follow. The troubleshooting chapters of each section provide excellent tools as well as common mistakes to help the networking professional deploy their solution successfully. The case study provides an invaluable example of a real world deployment. While the book is not advertised to be an exam preparation or certification guide, it could easily be used as a supplement towards those studies.