[.ca] Kerberos: A Network Authentication System (ISBN 0201379244)

No better than freely available stuff on web:
I'm a developer currently Kerberizing a server application. The chapter on the K5 API was useless. None of the data structures in the API is described and the example for krb5_sendauth is misleading (he fails to mention how the sample string should be retrieved by the server \oit can't\c). My e-mails to Mr. Tung have gone unanswered. My recommendation: don't buy the book -- read his free "Moron's Guide to Kerberos", look at the sample apps in the MIT K5 distribution, search MSDN for articles, and figure it out for yourself!

Honest Review of Kerberos: A Network Authentication System:
I purchased this book in order to read before installing and configuring Kerberos V5 on my servers. My thoughts were that it would be good to have a little book vs. the README files and on-line documents. I was wrong. For example, section 3.3.2 on configuring the KDC file is missing basic minimal information that it takes to make kerberos work. The instructions are wrong and missing many basic configuration parameters. What did I do? You guessed it. Another poster/review said the exact same thing. The books is much less helpful than on-line web pages, README files and other documentation. Honestly, book is a waste of money if you actual want to run Kerberos. There are much better sources on the net and the sources are MUCH more accurate. ... this book is honestly a waste of money. I hope the next Kerberos book is accurate and value-added. We sure need one!! Kerberos can be complex to install and with Microsoft supporting Kerberos V5 now, we need better books on the subject so we can work on cross-realm or cross-domain interoperability. Unfortunately, this is not the book for anyone who really wants to install Kerberos and would like a reference to do so. Perhaps O'Reilly or WROX will have one soon!! Avoid this one.

Honest Review of Kerberos: A Network Authentication System:
I purchased this book in order to read before installing and configuring Kerberos V5 on my servers. My thoughts were that it would be good to have a little book vs. the README files and on-line documents. I was wrong. For example, section 3.3.2 on configuring the KDC file is missing basic minimal information that it takes to make kerberos work. The instructions are wrong and missing many basic configuration parameters. There are much better sources on the net and the sources are MUCH more accurate. I hope the next Kerberos book is accurate and value-added. We sure need one!! Kerberos can be complex to install and with Microsoft supporting Kerberos V5 now, we need better books on the subject so we can work on cross-realm or cross-domain interoperability. Unfortunately, this is not the book for anyone who really wants to install Kerberos and would like a reference to do so. Avoid this one.

Good chapter on Kerberos for developers:
I needed to "kerberize" a PeopleSoft application. Chapter 4 of this book helped me immensely. It was clear and to-the-point. This book covers Kerberos 5. Although my installation is still using Kerberos 4, this book's description of the process of "kerberizing" an application made the man pages for the Kerberos 4 calls comprehensible to me. I'm grateful.

Disapointing:
This book was very disappointing. I had high expectations for this book, but you will get more information out of the 3 online docs from MIT (Kerberos Installation Guide, Administration Guide and Users' Guide). Since this is the only book specifically for kerberos, it is by default the best book, but I think that most users and administrators of kerberos will find more prudent information on the web.