Rating: 
Summary: A good introduction to VPN
Review: Although it was light on the current array of integrated solutions available for VPN, it was a pretty good introduction for the beginner sysadmin who might know noting about VPN's. The chapters about the Pix and the Altavista tunnel, were solid, although most of the beginning was somewhat light for an o'reilly. In a second edition I would like to see expanded how-to coverage of some of the hardware and software solutions that are out there now, as well as a comprehensive section on troubleshooting the problems that can occur with vpn.
Rating: 
Summary: O'Reilly has succumbed to making $$$ versus making quality
Review: I agree with all the statements made by the reader from Atlanta. Several of the things mentioned in the book indicate that it was written at least 9 to 12 months ago. Chapter 7 is so full of errors on IP address assignments that the text is very confusing when trying to follow along with the figures. Through out the book the text is not aligned with the figures and in one case the figure is outright in error. When looking at the back of the book to see what background the authors have, they should stick to driving tanks and management. They have definitively proven they can not constuct a nework and shouldn't. O'Reilly had a good reputation with its Unix books. A damn shame they have destroyed it with this window oriented book. Perhaps O'Reilly should give up on Windows books since they did not even do a perfuntionary Quality Audit of this one.
Rating:
Summary: Crap for newbies
Review: I am badly suprised. I have 2-3 months VPN experience and know MUUUCH more than author of this "research". Waste of money, I will think before purchasing O'Reilly books in future
Rating:
Summary: waste of money
Review: I bought this book on an impuse. I assumed that since it was an oreilly book it would have some decent technical content and perspective. But was I wrong, the book starts with a minimal overview of VPNs one could pick up on the web in 5 minutes, a bunch of screen captures of setting up windows NT's VPN, a short chapter on using ssh, and a chapter on altavista's tunelling product.. I would have expected at least balanced and comparable results between each approach but, for example, the ssh chapter goes into the end performance of that approach but this evaluation isn't present for windows nt. In short there is no technical detail in this book and the information that is there would be just as easily (and much less expensively) found on the web.Boo hiss.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of money!
Review: I can't believe O'Reilly published this book. This book was published in March '98 and appears to be written at least 12-18 months ago. If you are looking to build a VPN using Alta Vista's or Cisco's product (older versions, of course) this book may be a good introduction for you. Otherwise, I would not recommend this book for anyone interested in learning about VPNs. You can find white papers that are better and more up-to-date on the Internet (and they're free). I wish I could get my money back for this one!
Rating:
Summary: Innacurate and old
Review: I didn't check out the publication date of this book when I bought it (1998) so my dissapointment is partly my fault. It is, unsuprisingly, very outdated (anyone actually remember the altavista tunnel?). However, much of the info that remains, even general VPN fundamentals, are flawed and innacurate. This book will hinder you if you are trying to understand proper VPN network topologies.
Rating:
Summary: Innacurate and old
Review: I didn't check out the publication date of this book when I bought it (1998) so my dissapointment is partly my fault. It is, unsuprisingly, very outdated (anyone actually remember the altavista tunnel?). However, much of the info that remains, even general VPN fundamentals, are flawed and innacurate. This book will hinder you if you are trying to understand proper VPN network topologies.
Rating:
Summary: Very poor.
Review: I have to agree with the majority of comments. This book is a disgrace to O'reilly. It is technically incorrect in many areas, e.g. "A SYN flood is a 'killer ping'" ...uhm, no, it's not. There's _no_ way this, and many other errors should have got past the editors.
Rating:
Summary: BAD book....O'Reilly! 2nd Edition!
Review: I so agree with "This book is a blot on O'Reilly's reputation. The editor(s) must have been asleep". I have many O'Reilly books, and they all are good...but not this one. I trusted the O'Reilly's editors. So I ordered this book before it was published. I wish I had the chance to read the reviews....
Rating: 
Summary: Virtual Private Networks, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly Nutshell)
Review: I'm new to the world of VPN. This book laid some ground work for me to start with. The other reviews consider this book as usless, but now after having read this book, I now have a basis to gauge other work by. After all, as another review stated, there is not much new material out there.
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