Remote Access To Web Server Using Palm Pilot?

ed tellefsen asks: "If and when our server goes down, I'd love to be able to reboot it remotely using a palm pilot. I searched at Google and found some open source software called PalmVNC. Anyone familiar with it? Are there other options available?"

Comments

SSH, telnet, and web.

[Leapfrog]

There's TopGun SSH, the secure shell client; ptelnet, a telnet client and vt220 serial terminal, and Palmscape, the palm web browser.

Google searches for any of those, possibly including "palmos", will return the appropriate URLs. I use ptelnet on a regular basis for configuring routers and whatever else you need to plug a serial terminal into.

Hope this helps!

Re:SSH, telnet, and web.

[Bryan Andersen]

TobGun SSH is my tool of choice. UI is odd, but then I only use it for emergencies. My main complaint about it is you can't maintain a connection and use another palm app. Connections are dropped on program switchs.

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

VNC for the Palm was a cool hack, but of course you're limited to a somewhat small desktop...

I'd use a terminal program, personally, but I suppose you could load up an x-term in PalmVNC. :)

It's definately usable

[eyeball]

I played with it with the first-gen Minstral CDPD Palm modem to control my desktop (which was connected to the net via ISDN).. Somewhat of a pain to scroll around, but if you have your vnc session set to 640x480, it's not that bad...

Use a telnet client

[Jess]

PalmVNC looks pretty cool, I'll have to give it a try.

Another alternative is to use a telnet client. ptelnet is free and works very well. I've been using it while on travel to telnet in and use pine for e-mail. I have a keyboard which helps a lot, but you can be functional with the stylus if you have to be.

Re:It's a software AND hardware problem

[morgus morphus]

Some ATX motherboards have a jumper to default to on after a power cycle, my own Gigabyte (not particularly hot otherwise but quite good on power features) certainly does anyway.

The reason why this isn't the default is that all PC's would turn themselves on after a power failure, even if you were on holiday. So this is only really desired for servers.

First figure out how to reboot remotely

[hatless]

The hell with VNC. Assuming this web server is running Linux or Unix, You shouldn't be running X full time on your web servers anyway. It's a big resource drain and a yet another thing you have to worry about security on.

If the server can still be logged into remotely, go with telnet or if you give a damn about security, SSH. There are Palm clients for both that will work over a modem or a woreless gizmo like a Minstrel/Omnisky.

If you're talking about rebooting it when it's frozen solid, no application on your server is going to help with that, since your Palm ain't going to be able to connect to it. At that point, you're talking about solutions involving hardware that triggers a reboot through a special hardware interface or power-cycles the machine. Check the manuals for your server hardware or UPS to see if you have this capability.

If you have such a means of restarting it, the next step is to build an interface to it that you can get at remotely. If you can't get SSH access to a command line on the machine that does the rebooting, a protected web interface that executes the apprporiate remote-reboot command might be an okay way to go. Once you've got that, something like a Palm PQA to prompt for your password and trip the URL should be enough.

DON'T a telnet client

[SEWilco]

No, do not use telnet. It has no encryption so you're sending usernames and passwords unprotected. Use the previously-mentioned SSH tools.

Re:How far down?

[SEWilco]

Obviously some level of control would require that the server be using a serial console, so you actually SSH into an administrative server which has a serial port wired to the web server which you're trying to fix. That administrative server can also be able to reboot the other machines; the easiest is with the reset switch connected to a relay which is controlled by a parallel port or modem control line. Hardware watchdog cards also have various related capabilities.

IBM

[Indomitus]

IBM has a setup out to do just this type of thing. I believe it's a seperate box that you access via your PalmVII and you can use that to reboot servers over the net. My boss saw it demoed at the big ISPCon in Florida a couple of months ago but I forget what the name of the system is but it seemed like something that they'd be promoting pretty heavily on their website.

Is it just me or is IBM one of the only companies that follows up the statement 'Look at our cool stuff' with the all-imporant 'You can buy it right over here'?

I use (Palm)VNC for remote reboots...

[Kris_J]

I've got an NT server with the VNC server and I've got the client on my laptop and TRGpro. It's ideal for reboots and pretty much everything else, although the Palm version is a little slow to use. I highly recommend it for doing general tasks that need the GUI. You can restart more than just the server, restarting services or resetting user's passwords for example.

However, for some specific stuff (like just reboots) you could probably use some sort of telnet server, or general CLI -- it would be much quicker.

Re:I use (Palm)VNC for remote reboots...

[ksheff]

According to the VNC web site, The WinVNC server is slow period. I use it mainly with x2vnc to control my windows machine from my linux machine. When I move my mouse to the edge of the screen in X, it starts moving the mouse in windows and linux keyboard input goes to the current windows program. I've tried using the X vnc client with the WinVNC and it is painfully slow. The X VNC server is much faster.