[TriLUG] IOS & PIX: best books, references, & sites

[Kevin Miller]

> who can recommend books, etc. to learn the above? i understand networks,
> netmasks, routing, etc., and have twiddled with ipchains/iptables on a
> couple of occasions. i really want to learn about the Cisco
> implementations.

cisco.com itself has quite a bit of information, and recently they
have actually been organizing it a bit better. Note that PIX and IOS
are two completely different beasts.

CCNA is a well-beaten path for getting an introduction to basic
routing and switching. There are a number of books that teach to that;
while you might not want to "teach to a test", at least you are
guaranteed of being introduced to some set of basic knowledge.

Nothing beats having access to a box. I'm sure you can ebay for lots
of things; 2500s are popular introductory routers. You can probably
get one for under $100, but you won't be able to run anywhere near
current code and thus not have access to the newish features. But
you'll be able to setup routing, filtering, etc. A PIX 501 is a bit
more expensive but is a still-current product. For IOS, I might try to
find a 1711 router to get a low-end but still current box.

-Kevin