Incredibly funny and important book for anybody who has ever touched a terminal. If you’ve used the terminal, you’ve most likely used SSH. It is a key sysadmin tool to work on remove systems and servers. We all may know how to do the basics with SSH but the author breaks down every part of using SSH from seting up match lists, using X11 forwarding, and even how to setup a VPN over SSH.

For those of you not using GNU/Linux or BSD, he even uses examples with Putty, the defacto standard SSH program for Microsoft Windows.

A few chapters flew over my head but I will surely revisit this book again to try to make my systems more secure with match lists in sshd_config. This is an essential reference book for intermediate to expert computer user. I feel my understading of the protocol is way better after reading this book. The author also has a great sense of humour with the funny system names he uses and how he explains things.

To buy this or other [sexy books]({{ ref “/p/savaged-by-systemd-by-michael-warren-lucas/” }}) by the author, check out his website, Tilted Windmill Press.

Rating: ★★★★★

Book #59 in my 2022 Reading Challenge