Re: Remote admin of intermittently-connected machine?
We had a headless server on the other side of the world that connected
intermittently with a dynamic IP over a 28.8 dialup line. It would
email me its IP address when it connected; at that point I had five
minutes to ssh into that IP address and stop it from disconnecting,
and do whatever admin work was needed.
The drawbacks to this method in your case are (a) you can only do
administration when you're logged in when they connect, and (b) your
friends may not enjoy having you know every time they connect to the
net.
The advantage is that it allows for interactive administration, it's
foolproofedly simple to set up, and your friends don't have to do
anything themselves.
--Pete
On Wed, May 29, 2002 at 07:07:05PM +0100, Karl E. Jorgensen wrote:
> Since I set up a Debian/GNU Linux box for a couple of friends, I find
> myself having to administer it remotely. Which is OK, as I did install
> ssh on it.
>
> But the box is only connected to the internet via a pay-as-you-go
> dial-up connection. And: I only want them to be connected to the
> internet when *they* like it (it's their phonebill after all). Which
> probably doesn't always coincide with when I want to log in and do
> things.
>
> So, this weird scheme occured to me: It is possible to do *some* of the
> admin via email? (not TCP/IP over SMTP/POP3...) I'm thinking something
> along the lines of being able to email commands to the box (GNUPG signed
> and encrypted of course), and have it email me back the output (again,
> signed & encrypted). Similar to at(1), but remotely and via email.
>
> This won't work for interactive commands, but *should* work for the
> basics (i.e. "apt-get --download-only --yes install so-and-so" etc.)
>
> Writing something like the above is fraught with caveats and security
> holes, so I'd rather not write the lot from scratch.
>
> Has anybody else been in the same situation? What was your solution?
> Ideas and comments are welcome!
>
> --
> Karl E. J?rgensen
> karl@jorgensen.com
> www.karl.jorgensen.com
> ==== Today's fortune:
> If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
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