Wireless SSH2 Devices?

AugstWest asks: "I was at a concert in Manhattan last night when I panicked and thought my beeper had gone off, which would usually mean that one of my company's servers had failed, leaving clients without vital services. I know I'm not alone in being the sole admin since a lot of companies don't have the resources to have redundant dedicated admins, so if the servers go down, I'm the only one who knows how to get them back up. My nearest terminal was in Connecticut. I would have had to leave the show (leave a King Crimson show?) and drive back to Connecticut (at least an hour) to be able to get in to the server and scope the situation. Fortunately I had hallucinated the beep, but it hit me that there's got to be a wireless device out there that can handle SSH2. I've got a client for the Palm that does SSH1, but it's not enough. What are people using to administer their servers from a wireless device? Since it's just a character shell it shouldn't be too difficult to do, and it would be so nice to be able to just duck out to the hallway, log in to the server, check the status, start things up again, then head back in to the show."

Comments

Mystery slashdot posts

[Tyndareos]

Okay, this is totally off-topic, but howcome can these articles appear in "older stuff" that don't appear on the front page? Does nobody ever notice @ Slashdot that hardly anyone contributes to these discussions?

This is just weird ....

btw; I don't have any mobile devices, but I reckon it would probably be nive to have the ability to remote login on your server with your Yopy ...

amateur radio wireless

[joedumb]

I was thinking about making a wireless hamradio packet radio link to my servers so that i can administer them. Dunno. Anyone tried before?

Re:amateur radio wireless

[cperciva]

Bad idea. On a good day 50% of packets get through. For interactive sessions that is a Bad Thing.

If you want remote access you'll have to use something more reliable than packet radio.

Re:amateur radio wireless

[toast0]

amateur radio regulations prohibit use of any form of encryption over the air....

(the idea is to prevent people from using amateur radio as a tool of spying on the US or something)

which kinda throws out security unless you can figure a way to say your encryption isn't :)

Ask Slashdot

[NetJunkie]

Change your profile to put the Ask Slashdot box on your Slashdot page.

Re:Ask Slashdot

[AugstWest]

I know what you're saying, I was hoping this would be on the frontpage and there'd be a solid discussion, but I dunno how they choose which "Ask Slashdots" they put on the front page. I thought this one would be worthy, but I guess I was wrong.

Never really got an answer, either, other than "keep with what you've got."

Re:Ask Slashdot

[Crewd]

What I think the original replier meant was to add the Ask Slashdot slashBOX to your main page. Go to your preferences and check the box for Ask Slashdot under "Customize Slashboxes". If you do that, you will see all the Ask Slashdot articles in a convienent box on the main page...

Re:Ask Slashdot

[SEWilco]

The fact you're missing: Not all stories go on the front page.

On the front page you only see those stories which the Editors approve for the front page. For all other accepted stories, you only see them in the Slashbox for that topic -- or in "Older Stuff" which shows all accepted articles.

Re:Ask Slashdot

[Tyndareos]

I have not selected a single option in the topics in my profile to be excluded. I get ask slashdot questions, but some of them just don't appear as all the other stories do, on the main page. The only way I can find them is through the "older stuff" page and these stories consequently don't get more than 10 reactions, thus this must be true for almost 100% of the slashdot public.

Re:Ask Slashdot

[Tyndareos]

Thank you. That is a clear explanation.

Mindterm

[gordon_schumway]

I don't know anything about wireless but you might want to check out a java implementation of an ssh client, Mindterm. It can be run from within a browser (I set up a web page to launch Mindterm and use it all the time when confronted with a Windows machine). The recently released version (14.Nov) supports ssh2. The old versions (not ssh2) were free for "non-commercial, personal, system adminstration or evaluation" use but the new version claims it will expire in 30 days. However I think the code is available (but I don't see it on the website) so one could just disable that if the previous license applies.

It sounds like...

[bconway]

You've already got the hard part taken care of. If you have SSH1 on the Palm working on a wireless connection, you've conquered all the major obstacles, and all that you really need to do is setup OpenSSH on the server in question (with OpenSSL as a dependency). Version 2.3.0p1 (not to be confused with SSH2 2.3.0) was released recently, and it has full compatability, including transparent X forwarding with both SSH versions 1.x and 2.x. Give it a try!

Re:It sounds like...

[AugstWest]

Right, but ssh1 has inherent security issues, which is why I'm looking for ssh2.

I'm also not really looking for X11 forwarding to a wireless device... :]

Re:Ehhhh

[sith]

Just recompile ssh without RSAREF, assuming its already in there...

Re:Secured convenience

[AugstWest]

Well, I now have a better idea of what the security issue was with SSH1, and I've already secured some servers with it.

I've also found OmniSky's wireless modems for the Palms, Jornadas and Handsprings. They're currently $99 to purchase and $39.95/month for unlimited access. I've got my boss talked into it, considering that he was going to pay pretty much that price for a cell phone, which would prove worthless if I was out "in the field" and away from a machine with net access.

A shell account anywhere... IRC, Lynx, e-mail and web access... Works for me.

Brute force solution

[FigWig]

Get one of those Sony Vaio "Picture books" with the camera on them. Buy a ricochet or cellular modem, install linux. Now you never have to go into work again. Waterproof it and you can work from a jacuzzi. In brazil. Naked.

Re:Brute force solution

[Bryan Andersen]

It may be funny, but it works.

I keep an old beatup laptop with me all the time cos it has Linux+SSH on it. I can hookup from almost anywhere I can find a phone or network port. I don't have a cellphone because I don't want to spend the $$$ on it out of my pocket. If a place I'm working wants me to have that level of connectivity they can pay for it.

OpenSSH - iPAQ - Cell Link

[SEWilco]

How about OpenSSH on Linux on a Compaq iPAQ with a cell phone link to the Internet?

If you don't want a normal modem link, you can get digital data service on a GSM phone. With a vibrating phone/battery, you can get paged by the phone. Then to call back you connect the iPAQ to the phone (wire or IR).

Ricochet also

[SEWilco]

Another wireless option is the Ricochet modem. Service is available in several dozen cities in the USA -- higher price, higher data rate than some other devices.

Re:Ehhhh

[AugstWest]

uhhhhh... so what's all this about then?

Secured convenience

[afinlay]

That would, I agree be a very novel idea to implement. To have the convenience of remote security. I think that would mostly solve the "physical location" issue. You would be able to manipulate your network from miles away. Update your site from school. Fantastic idea. Maybe in the future we would be able to remotely boot up our computers. I'd be interested in the technology neccessary to inserting this indespensible feature. Except that it must be despensible considering we've gone without it this long.