New book: “Cisco Routers for the Desperate, 2nd Edition”
Cisco routers and switches are the backbone of many small business networks. While Cisco’s hardware is typically reliable, things can break – and when they do, most administrators don’t want to wade through lengthy product documentation to solve their problems. They need to be able to fix things fast.
This second edition of the critically acclaimed Cisco Routers for the Desperate gives readers exactly the information they need to solve router problems when things go south. Building on the same “in case of emergency” basics and quick fixes that made the first edition a success, the second edition takes a completely command line-oriented approach to working with the Cisco operating system and adds coverage of switches and the latest Cisco terminology.
In addition to sections on basic router maintenance and circuit troubleshooting, the book covers:
- Configuration – setting up router and network connections correctly
- Troubleshooting – how to determine whether a failure or slowdown is due to an ISP problem or your hardware
- Security – how to keep network equipment safe from attacks and install a private network between two offices
- Network redundancy – how to reduce downtime using BGP and HSRP
- Integration – how to update and maintain routers and switches and add new hardware into existing networks.
The author, Michael W. Lucas, is a network/security engineer with extensive experience working with high-availability systems. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Absolute FreeBSD, Absolute OpenBSD, Cisco Routers for the Desperate, and PGP & GPG, all from No Starch Press.