This book stands out as uniquely well conceived and written. It presents a wealth of useful information on OpenBSD in a style unmatched by nearly any computer/computing book I've seen. Mr. Lucas manages to avoid both obtuseness and superficiality and imparts his knowledge with wonderful ease and grace. This book should not leave anyone intimidated or insecure about running OpenBSD, and will likely prove very useful to users of other BSDs as well. With this book as its cornerstone, you can create a library of just four volumes - the others being BSD Hacks, and Unix Visual Quickstart Guide and Unix Advanced Visual Quickpro Guide - that you couldn't match in terms of concentrated usefulness for any other OS.

If you want to use the internet with minimal security risks, you want to use OpenBSD -- but there are aren't that many intro materials. Just getting a box set up, so that you can search the web for answers is tough. If you don't know someone who can help you, this book can get you through the tough spots; you just need will.

With this book, you can install the OS and get on the Web securely and quickly. Almost all your problems will not be with OpenBSD itself, but with your complicated DSL modem, ISP or sendmail.

There's very practical information in this book (e.g. IP aliasing -- good if you want hidden machines on your LAN) that isn't in more encyclopedic books. This is one of the best things about this book, the very high signal to noise ratio. If you want a reference for OpenBSD, try the FreeBSD books -- some are excellent, and they are similar enough to OpenBSD that you'll be able to get done what you need to get done. But read and re-read Lucas's book before you try new things.

The author didn't make clear that OpenBSD attempts to prevent failures proactively, even if it means you get cryptic and alarming warnings. Where other OS's silently accept or ignore potentially bad things (e.g. ARP cache poisoning), OpenBSD sounds the alarm. If you've simply misconfigured stuff, these warnings can scare you. Just look on the web for answers; others have made these same mistakes.

More details on how to recover from mistakes would have been nice. E.g. what to do if you suboptimally partition the disk, or what if you get the IP address wrong. You better know something about Unix beforehand. Notes on how to fix major problems (e.g. ruined fstab), or where to go for such info would be nice -- I wound up reinstalling/rebooting a few times, which I know is an admission of failure -- but I couldn't find out what else to do.

The author doesn't hype the correctness of OpenBSD enough, and the positive feelings you get over time due to this. The software really works as advertised. As you set things up, you get constant positive feedback, because stuff works and keeps on working. I've had no crashes after 7 months use.

The longer your stuff stays up and working, the more you see how rotten stuff is outside of BSD-land. Use OpenBSD and you'll experience some juicy schadenfreude as you learn of the woes of the non-BSD users. If you look at your computer's logs, you'll see that you are getting scanned all the time by compromised windows and linux boxes. You can justifiably feel superior to these people; they chose the wrong OS and pay the price. You chose the right OS (for a hostile internet) and have to pay the price every day, because administering an old-school Unix box is not as easy. The author doesn't make these points, perhaps because they are a bit mean-spirited, and he's a nice guy.

Finaly, the author has some cool articles online at Onlamp, of a decidedly "hacker" nature -- e.g. setting up embedded OpenBSD on diskless machines. Now you see why this book has so much practical info; the author does a lot of hacking. I want a book on that stuff, from this author.

Just reading the Absolute OpenBSD book really isn't enough to learn a lot of the aspects of the OpenBSD operating system, but the book definitely gives you a great reference and information to fall back on when learning how to use OpenBSD or learning something new about it. For me it really wasn't the learning the feel of Linux/BSD that gave me some trouble in OpenBSD since being familiar with Slackware Linux helps out for learning the feel, but it was mainly just some of the major differences between them such as PF vs. IPTables for example. This book helped me get past the learning curve of starting the OpenBSD, and in the end the servers of mine running the OS seen an improvement all around in getting things done. I doubt by just reading this book that a user could know OpenBSD inside and out without prior GNU/Linux or BSD familiarization, but the book does a good job at going over the OpenBSD operating system and it's security features/advantages along with going into detail about just about anything pertaining to this extremely secure and locked down operating system, also will allow even veteran OpenBSD users to possibly learn something new.

The last great thing about this book is that it's fairly up to date, but did leave one thing out that I would have liked to seen in the book; the CARP system that is new since OpenBSD 3.5. But I guess since CARP just came around since 3.5, it's understandable that it wasn't really covered in this book. All in all I would recommend this book to anybody with GNU/Linux or BSD experience and looking to expand their knowledge into OpenBSD, but for newer users of this type of system I would recommend also seeking more information from the OpenBSD manual pages or have a OpenBSD machine on hand for trying things while you read through the book.

I am a Sys Admin with 7 years UNIX experience (Solaris 2.6-9, DG-UX, SCO Unixware/Openserver, Red Hat Linux4-Ent3, Nokia IPSO) and have started to move into the BSD realm over the last year. I have always had an interest in OpenBSD because of the security first attitude and I started using FreeBSD on several servers last year.

Now I find myself with several sparc64 machines with nothing to do. Looking over my network, I see that I can use a bridge with pf enabled in a couple of places as well as a Load Balancer or two. So in comes OpenBSD.

This book was a pleasure to read and reference while getting the OpenBSD boxen in line. It covers the basics of installing, upgrading, patching, and other Sys Admin tasks. It also has three chapters on pf (the firewall for openbsd) which is a major strength of this os.
It was a great intro and fun read (my wife thinks I am disturbed for reading it at the pool :-), while then turning to the OpenBSD FAQ for more insight.

I have become a rabid fan of OpenBSD and see it having a larger role in future deployments of mine.
If you are new to OpenBSD with some Unix-type background, this is the book you need to get started with little fuss.

If you know anything about Unix/Linux then you will love this book. I have found it hard to put this book down and would recomend it to anyone looking to move/use OpenBSD. This book is written for those who are probably new to BSD OS's and have some Linux/Unix experience. I would say that someone new to the *nix enviroment will learn a great deal from this book as well, but having some background will help greatly. A must read from cover to cover. I even read the Intro and I never do that. Cheers to the author and thank you for all the help. "Newbies please read before you post"

A very good book for users with an intermediate knowledge of UNIX/Linux. Some sections, such as the TCP/IP primer will be redundant for many, but apart from that (and a few grammatical errors;)), a great read.

Michael Lucas has provided some of the most useful documentation to the BSD family that's available. From his OnLamp columns to his two No Starch Press BSD books, he's given both new and experienced BSD users some great material.

Absolute OpenBSD follows the tradition. This is not a reprint or rewording of the online OpenBSD documentation available. It's like doing a walk-through of an OpenBSD install and configuration with an experienced sysadmin who speaks plain-talk, makes jokes that aren't corny (well, sometimes at least ) and gets to the point.

If you're interested in the OpenBSD world, or have a bit of a history with OpenBSD but want to fill in the gaps, or just further your understanding of this awesome operating system, buy this book.

Absolute OpenBSD is a thorough and comprehensive instructional guide by Michael W. Lucas to the most secure operating system in the world, with fewer holes than any version of Linux or Windows, and developed expressly for its correctness, security, and reliability, free for any use or purpose. Individual chapters offer a straightforward guide to installing and configuring Open BSD, implementing its unique security features, building flexible customized firewalls, encrypting filesystems, upgrading painlessly, and much more. Absolute OpenBSD is a very highly recommended and distinctly "user friendly" resource for OpenBSD users everywhere.

Before reading this book, I had tried out OpenBSD a little, but I was left with many questions, and online documentation can be a bit intimidating at times. So when I found this book at the bookstore, I was thrilled. I am happy to say that this book really did live up to expectation.

The intended audience of this book were people who knew there way around Unix and Linux. One need not be a veteran user, but as the author points out, you are expected to know basic command line stuff. If you are there, you will find this book to be a very easy going, yet thorough introduction to OpenBSD.

This book walks you all the way through the origins of BSD, through installation (an excellent section of the book), to usage, compiling kernels, and so on. You get a well-rounded coverage of a very interesting operating system.

I also really like the author's style of writing. On the one hand, you get a genuine sense of professionalism, but on the other hand, he cracks some good jokes throughout. If you are a system admin of any sort, you will certainly appreciate the humor.

In closing, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who's had some experience with Unix and Linux. OpenBSD is a operating system few have tried, but I think after reading this book, you will definitely want to go out and try it yourself. The book is definitely time and money well spent.

OpenBSD is lauded for its security features -- this is THE OS to use for serious firewalls or secure web servers and the like. However, it is small and obscure compared to the better known, more popular FreeBSD, and of course there are 10 Linux users for every 1 person who has even heard of OpenBSD.

Until now, installing and using OpenBSD required reading numerous man pages and online FAQs and tutorials. OpenBSD's documentation is pretty good, but for the average person who just wants to try it out, it's an awful lot to wade through, with few navigational aids available. And the OpenBSD mailing lists are notoriously unforgiving of anyone who asks questions without having read every pertinent document first.

"Absolute OpenBSD" is just what this OS needed to make it more accessible to a wider user base. It takes you step by step through installation, configuration, and implementation, and then covers a number of more advanced topics, including no less than three very comprehensive chapters devoted to pf, OpenBSD's own packet filtering program. (OpenBSD uses this instead of ipchains or iptables, which is what you will find on other BSDs or Linux.) It tells you what every service you might want to run (or not) is, and where they are found and how to configure them. It goes through the contents of OpenBSD's /etc directory, file by file.

The author has a very straightforward yet humorous writing style, and he neither talks down to the reader nor assumes that you are a SysAdmin and networking god. He does assume that you have some familiarity with UNIX-style OSs and basic UNIX/Linux commands. It also helps if you know a little basic networking -- if you have never even configured your TCP/IP settings on your Linux or Windows box, then you may have a steeper learning curve ahead.

If you are completely new to the *NIX world, then starting out with OpenBSD, even using this book as a guide, may be a little too much to take on before you've learned the basics. However, if you are coming from the Linux world, or are familiar with other BSDs (FreeBSD, NetBSD) or UNIX variants, then you will have no trouble learning OpenBSD from this book. If you're a Linux guy who's wondering what's so great about OpenBSD, or a sysadmin thinking of building an OpenBSD firewall, this is the book for you. OpenBSD is not and never will be accessible to the average casual computer user, but if you're not afraid of a command line and willing to learn more about the guts of an operating system, "Absolute OpenBSD" is a fine tutorial and reference guide.

The emphasis in this book is on the OpenBSD operating system itself, and what makes it special and unique. There is very good coverage of OpenBSD's unique security features, and what differentiates it from other BSDs and Linux. If you just want to build a firewall, this book is all you need. If you want an introduction to OpenBSD, because you are thinking about using it for your server or workstation(s), this book will give you what you want. If you want to set up a server, this book will give you enough to get your OpenBSD machine set up and ready to be turned into one, but it does not cover setting up sendmail or DNS or Apache or DHCP or the like in great detail -- only what you need to know about setting those services up on OpenBSD. You'll need to go elsewhere for more detailed instructions on individual services. (If you already know how to set them up on another OS, though, then this book will tell you everything you need to know to get them running on OpenBSD.)

This is absolutely an excellent guide to OpenBSD, and I found nothing that wasn't covered adequately. It allowed me to install and upgrade my own OpenBSD machine and build a custom firewall for my home network, and I was coming from the Linux world with only a small amount of networking experience. While more OpenBSD books would be nice, this is the one that all future books will be compared against.

This book is a great introduction to OpenBSD. As other reviewers have pointed out, it is a general text that doesn't go into great detail on advanced topics. A lot of things are skimmed over, as it is assumed that the reader has already had some basic experience with other Unix-like operating systems. The book does a great job of covering OpenBSD-specific topics in good detail, while easing off in other areas (e.g. IPsec, mailer configuration, etc.) where you will be able to find other books that cover those topics in much more detail.

As for editing and errors: yes, there are some. More then I would like? Yes. But more than I'd expect? No, I don't think so. The errors that I noticed hardly detract from the overall quality of the book.

After having run an OpenBSD firewall at home for the past year, I still found a lot of nuggets of information in this book that I did not know previously. For newcomers to OpenBSD, especially, I highly recommend this book.

Six months ago I was happy to read Michael Lucas' "Absolute BSD," and today I'm glad I read "Absolute OpenBSD." This author knows just what to cover, and to what detail. To test the book's relevance I bought an OpenBSD 3.3 CD-ROM set and installed it, following Lucas' directions. I tried many of the procedures in the book, and found Lucas' instructions to be accurate on the whole. (Right now I'm rebuilding a system to incorporate a security patch that needs certain static binaries to be recompiled from source.)

Lucas provides the background and skills needed to get a working OpenBSD system. Although some of the most basic UNIX-type material appears by necessity in both "Absolute" books (these are both BSDs!), Lucas knows where each OS' strength lies. In his FreeBSD book, he spends more time on general purpose server services. Web, FTP, email, DNS, etc. all get their own chapters. In this OpenBSD book, Lucas devotes multiple chapters to topics that matter most to OpenBSD users -- security and packet filtering. While lots of people run Web, etc. on OpenBSD platforms, OpenBSD offers unique features in its systrace system call access control and PF packet filtering tools. Beyond these OpenBSD strengths, Lucas gives plenty of coverage to the routine yet crucial system administration tasks of adding and removing applications, and upgrading and patching the OS itself.

On the downside, some have commented on "rough editing." While the book has some typos, I didn't find them all that distracting. Beware p. 344, though -- I think "tag=OPENBSD3_2" should read "tag=OPENBSD_3_2". (This is subtle but could be important.) I also found the description of network layers in ch 8 to be perplexing. Why talk about "application, logical protocol, physical protocol, and physical layer" when no one else does? I would also have liked to have read of OpenBSD's use as a bridging firewall or as a VPN concentrator.

The bottom line is this: Michael Lucas knows what to write to help system administrators get the job done. I wish other authors did the same. I'd love to see Lucas or another "No Starch" author write "Absolute Cisco Routers," followed by "Absolute Cisco Switches." Any takers?

Depends on how you look at it. This is the first OpenBSD specific book (other than building linux and openbsd firewalls, which doesnt count as specific to me) and I was hoping for something more advanced. It can be better described as a general book on openbsd that will hopefully educate the newbie user base. Im very impressed with its presentation and format. Theres little coverage of more advanced topics such as VPNS (i was hoping for IPsec and ISAKMPD info), and I think the book spends a bit too many pages on installation coverage. Other than that its great. After reading through most of it I can say that I have a more structured understanding of openbsd than I did before. I think this book is good for newbies and those of moderate to slightly advanced skill. Im glad that I got the book, ......

Mike Lucas has prepared a great book on OpenBSD. I'm writing from a user's perspective who has been following and working with OpenBSD for about three years.

To my knowledge, this is the first book on OpenBSD. One of the best features of the book is that, in my opinion, the author fairly presents the nature of the OpenBSD project at the beginning of the book. You don't get any hand holding with OpenBSD, but if you are willing to do your homework, research existing documentation, etc., and work with the system you can obtain significant benefit from OpenBSD. You have to know some Unix basics to use the OS and gain benefit from the book.

The book is targeted somewhere between the moderately informed user and system administrators. The author covers installation for dedicated and multi-boot setups, essential post-install work, booting, and managing users. It reviews essential details regarding networking to bring user's up to speed and reviews Internet connections using Ethernet and ppp. There is significant detail on a wide variety of configurations and advaned security features such as security levels and systrace with discussion of WorX, Propolice. PF packet filter is coverd in detail along with example rules for three types topologies from home users to three tier models. There is significant material on building kernels, upgrading, the /etc file system, disk management, etc. for which OpenBSD has its own unique requirements and features.

I think that the book is well paced and has a good balance between "here is what you need to know in detail" and "now you need to do some research on your own". It doesn't answer basic Unix or advanced sys admin questions (the far end of the spectrum), but hits the middle of the user / admin spectrum well. I'm very pleased with the content and presentation. Thanks to Mike Lucas and I hope he continues to write about 'BSD.