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

UNIX or OS X laptop

[bastardsquadmuzz]

I'm not a sysadmin so I couldn't answer from personal experience, but I would have thought that the best tool would be a *NIX or a Mac OS X laptop. Then you have a keyboard to type on rather than faffing about with styli and handwriting recognition, and they are able to connect easily to all three major OSes. A Windows laptop would hinder rather than help you, because most of the tools you would need would be absent. I have a Palm m500 and the handwriting input is a pain sometimes, and I find it much easier and faster to use a keyboard. A bluetooth phone and PCMCIA card might be helpful though for when there's no phone socket nearby.

Re:UNIX or OS X laptop

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

I'll second this option - it's gotten possible to get a decent laptop rather inexpensively. I'll throw in a blatant plug for the Averatec 3150H that I just picked up for similar reasons. $900 new, and every single component appears to have viable working linux drivers as well (including even the software modem, which Smartlink makes and offers the driver source - though it's not GPL). My only complaint is that the obnoxious "restore disk" is the only copy you get of the software that it comes with, and the disk completely re-images your drive if you use it.

I ended up using the ntfsutils program to shrink the windows partition, and then making an image with dd of the section of the drive including the partition table and Windows(tm) section (I HAVE normal install disks for the Linux portion...).

I find myself regularly having to travel and still be able to be in contact with the main office to do support, which I think would be a serious pain to try to do on a telephone or with a PDA. On the other hand, a phone or PDA is substantially cheaper...

9210

[Gaima]

My 9210 can do all that, in one neat package.
You've got a excellent colour screen, full keyboard, pop/imap mail client, calendar, etc.

When I last looked, admitedly a long time ago, the only ssh client I could find was the commercial one from ssh.com. There is an ass load of software available via Nokia too.

The only major draw back is the lack of GPRS, but HSCSD is good enough for ssh.

OK, so it's a big phone, but when it's in it's holder and on my belt I don't notice it. There is no weight to it at all.

Here's my solution...

[MrIcee]

I live in hawaii but monitor servers in Indiana and elsewhere. I use a PALM Tungsten W which gives me Mobile Internet and also has a slot where I plug in WiFi for my local home network.

I also use Kuuaki which is a program for the Tungsten W that lets you monitor your servers CPU, processes (web cgi dns etc) get a short TOP display, etc.

Works quite well as a solution and the PALM also lets me telnet in. The keyboard is useable and the W is very durable and web browsing works pretty well.

6310i + Pocket PC

[unixbob]

I used to use an Ipaq 3630, but now I'm using a Dell Axmin X5. Bluetooth to the pocket pc, dialling in to a 33,6 RAS service (Orange is the mobile company provider). It's not the quickest thing in the world, but it's the most accessible. If I'm in the centre of town, I don't want to carry a laptop around with me. Even round at a friends house, setting up a VPN setting on his PC on his ADSL (where his router doesn't support VPN passthrough for example) is too much trouble.

MochaSoft Telnet is a decent SSH client for Pocket PC.
you can get a VNC Viewer for Pocket PC here
and a Terminal Services client for PocketPC can be downloaded here

I guess it depends on what you are after. Many of the suggestions here mention laptops and that's OK if you are just generally working remotely. But (even the skinniest one's) are bulky to carry around and require an additional bag to be lugging around. If you just need to ensure that you are able to to remote support in disaster situations whilst on the move, then the Pocket PC w/ bluetooth to a Nokia 6310i is a solution which I have used successfully. (I'm UK based if that makes any difference)

GPRS Card

[Anonymous Coward]

Laptop + Sierra Wireless 750 Card
This will get you GPRS service on the laptop
T-Mobile USA has service at $30/mo unlimited.