Re: ssh pam

[hservoma@wis02.ec.t.kanazawa-u.ac.jp]

Patrick Kirk <patrick@kirks.net> wrote: 

>I rarely access my box other than by telnet and I'm 
>told that I should use a more secure setup.

>What is the Debian recommended approach?  ssh?  PAM?
>Are they hard to implement?  I often use a different PC
>so I need a sloution that does not require a secure client.
                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Heh, no secure client -> no security. But seriously:
            
Ssh is a more secure replacement to telnet if you operate on
public networks. There is both the daemon and the client, just
as in telnet.
See the ssh homepage for more details:

http://www.ssh.org

Now, if you are on a trusted network (behind a firewall or standalone etc)
and you trust the other users, telnet's fine.

Ssh (or openssh) is very, or at least relatively easy to install on almost
every flavor of *nix.

Pam is an abstraction layer that is meant to ease the enforcement
of stronger authentication etc. I understand that Potato packages
are mostly (all?) pam-enabled. So is RH6.1 . Unless you are a sysadmin
you shouldn't have to worry about pam. For details check out

http://www.securityportal.com/lasg

However, AFAIK, you'll have to hand out some $$ if you want
a Windoze (95/98/NT) ssh client.

Hope this clears it a bit,

Tnx

--
Give me Debian or pencil and paper