Review of IPv6 Network Administration

Amazon.com just posted my five-star review of IPv6 Network Administration. Wow, this was a great book. I've added it to my Telecommunications recommended reading list. From the review:

"IPv6 Network Administration is an absolutely first-rate technical guide. It is refreshing to read a book that doesn't waste time by assuming the reader has no networking background. IPv6 Network Administration achieves just the right balance between history, theory, and practical application to serve the needs of administrators and interested readers. If you've been waiting for the right resource from which to learn IPv6, this book is it."

The authors maintain a blog to infrequently post IPv6 issues. I plan to give 6to4 a try. The authors discuss 6PE, which I'd like to understand better. They also mention SEcure Neighbor Discovery (SEND) to mitigate link-layer attacks.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Just out of my own curiousity, what are your thoughts about the time frame for widescale migration to IPv6 standards across the board? Obviously IPv6 has a much better design, from a security standpoint, and it's good that there's been a substantial amount of movement in the last decade into bringing the layer 3 protcol standard for the internet up to speed.

Also, in your opinion, might we see layer 4 protocols revamped anytime soon, as we all know UDP was designed for speed, TCP was designed for reliability, but neither were very concerned with security (Random ISN seems like security through obscurity to me, as Zalewski's random attractor analysis of most of the widely deployed PRNGs points out).

Is there going to come a time in the next 5 years where we seriously have to consider overhauling the layer 4 protocols as well? Or are we relying on security enhancements within the underlying protocols to stabalize the lack of security in the higher level ones(and I don't know why I'm even asking this latter question, as it seems like flawed logic to begin with)?
2:04 AM
Anonymous said…
Richard,

Thanks for your review. Looks like we hit the sweet spot for at least one person :-)

The blog is updated a little less frequently than we'd like at the moment, but we're
aiming to improve that soon.

Niall
3:38 AM
Richard Bejtlich said…
I have no clue concerning migration to IPv6. Places where IPv4 addresses are scarce (primarily Asia) are driving IPv6 development. I don't see the same pressures elsewhere.

Why does IPv6 have a better design from a security standpoint? Are you referencing IPSec? If so, we have that now with IPv4. We often hear IPSec is "mandatory" in IPv6, but all that means is IPv6 stacks must support IPSec. I am using IPv6 in my lab now with no IPSec.

There is nothing wrong with building security into lower levels if those enhancements address the confidentiality, integrity, or availability issues that concern us. In fact, security at lower issues may be a better solution.
8:20 AM
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