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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."
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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.
Ha! I kill me!
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!
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
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.
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.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
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.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
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).
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.
uhhhhh... so what's all this about then?