This book provides an explanation of the details of how Internet name service works on Unix systems.

This version of the book provides an explanation of the details of how Internet name service works on Windows NT.

This was the first book published on firewalls, describing the authors' experiences building a series of firewalls for AT&T Bell Labs. The book tends to be strong on theory and background but weak on implementation details; it tells you how they build firewalls, but you probably can't duplicate their tools and methods without the same kind of backing they have (AT&T Bell Labs). Even so, it's a classic in the field.

This book provides a helpful introduction to the nuts and bolts of TCP/IP networking. It discusses the basics about what packets look like and how routing works, etc. Later volumes include introductions to some of the higher-level protocols such as SMTP and FTP.

This is an excellent guide to the very popular program, PGP, which lets you encrypt and apply digital signatures to your messages. In addition to technical details, it contains the fascinating, behind-the-scenes stories of Phil Zimmermann's development of PGP, electronic privacy, and cryptography export and patents in the United States.

This is a very good guide to Unix host security. Simson Garfinkel is also the author of PGP: Pretty Good Privacy. Gene Spafford is now one of the principals of the CERIAS center at Purdue University.

This book provides an excellent system administrator's overview of TCP/IP networking. It focuses on Unix systems and includes a very useful reference to major Unix networking services and tools such as BIND (the standard Unix DNS server) and Sendmail (the standard Unix SMTP server).

This book provides an excellent system administrator's overview of TCP/IP networking. It focuses on Windows NT systems.

This is the standard reference guide to practical Unix system administration issues. It includes good, real-world coverage of thorny issues like backups.

This is an extremely comprehensive book about cryptography algorithms and techniques. It covers the Data Encryption Standard (DES), the RSA algorithm, and all of the other private and public key algorithms, with mathematical details for all of them. Source code is available.

This is a good guide to the nuts and bolts of TCP/IP networking. Its main strength is that it provides traces of the packets going back and forth as the protocols are actually in use and uses them to illustrate the discussions of the protocols.