Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal on the cover of Hardening Cisco Routers is a North African wild ass. This mammal, an ancestor of the domestic donkey, once lived in the Moroccan Atlas Mountain range and possibly through out North Africa. The small population of wild asses is now confined to Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia.

Adapted to arid grasslands, the North African wild ass eats thorny, dry plants and grass. It retreats to rocky areas for shade during the hot, sunny hours of the day and is active in the early morning, at dusk, and at night. The wild ass needs water every two to three days and lives alone or temporarily in small groups of offspring to conserver food and water. Males generally live alone, especially when defending territory that contains sources of water.

The North African wild ass is in grave danger of extinction. Domestication, breeding with domestic animals, hunting, and competition with other animals (including humans) for water has diminished the population to a few hundred. Well-meaning tourist who chase the animals for photographs often exhaust the wild asses to the point of death. The animal is now one of the rarest mammals in the world, despite conservation efforts. Ann Schirmer was the production editor and proofreader, and Norma Emory was the copyeditor, for Hardening Cisco Routers. Claire Cloutier, Tatiana Apandi Diaz, and Rachel Wheeler provided quality control. Johnna VanHoose Dinse wrote the index.

Emma Colby designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.

Melanie Wang designed the interior layout, based on a series design by David Futato. Mihaela Maier converted the files from Microsoft Word to FrameMaker 5.5.6 using tools created by Mike Sierra. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6. The tip and warning icons were drawn by Christopher Bing. This colophon was written by Ann Schirmer.