How Can I Be A Sys-Admin On The Road?

Peter Cooper asks: "I'm a server administrator who also has to visit clients, meaning I'm often out of the office. As a 'one man outfit', this means my servers are at risk during this time. I was planning to get a cellphone that can receive e-mail, and a PDA which can connect through the cellphone, so that I can SSH from anywhere in the country, but the amount of phones, PDAs, and connectivity options, are very confusing. Do other admins have recommendations for phones, PDAs, or other systems so I can be an admin on the road? I'm in the UK, but suggestions for elsewhere are also welcomed, as others may find them useful."

Comments

TWO WORDS - SHARP ZAURUS

[Anonymous Coward]

you need it my man .. it's made for guys like you .. I have one and it is awesome ... I even do CVS/Apache/PHP development on it, check it on th local webserver, commit my source code, then SSH over to the production machine, all while sitting on the shitter in the morning and listening to my 100GB+ MP3 collection sitting on my NFS server!!

I have a modem card, Wifi card, ethernet card, and a James Bond infrared folding keyboard (the pocketop, really cool and folds up small).

IrDA is built-in, that works fine for me, but bluetooth is also an option.

you will not be disappointed in the Z. buy one today.

A decent combination

[krist0]

I have a Sony Ericsson p900, i got myself the putty ssh client (it says its for the p800, but its basically the same thing) as well as a vnc client (remember from slashdot a while ago....oh well)...

I am to lazy to google for the links, but its a pretty spiffy package.

Failing that, you could always get yourself a tungsten c, it has a keyboard, making ssh sessions easier, however you have to connect via wifi or ir....wifi isnt always available and ir needs LOS to a phone to work, can be cumbersome.

but the p900, gprs, ssh works a charm.

Nokia 9210

[amackinlay]

Nokia 9210, Mindterm java SSH client and a monitoring box with mon.d and ssh_client (or a Skymo account).

I'd recommend a Sony Clie UX50 or next generation

[Enfors]

I'd recommend the Sony Clie UX50, or the next version of it when it arrives. It's a PalmOS based PDA with built-in bluetooth and Wifi in a "mini-laptop" form factor with a thumb keyboard that's bigger than that of most other PDAs. There are SSH clients and reasonably good mail clients and web browsers for PalmOS, so you should be OK in that department.