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Which Cell Phones & Networks for SSH?
muffinresearch asks: "I've been thinking about picking up a new PDA/Smartphone in the seasonal sales, I am finding a lack of more technical information with regards to being able to use SSH software via GPRS. Now as far as I can see, the Treo 600, and the Sony-Ericsson P900/P910i can all use third-party SSH clients.However what is lacking here in the UK is info on which networks allow access on port 22, and whether this access requires a pay-monthly account or can you do it on a Pay-as-you-go account? I'm reckoning some of you will have useful info on what is working for you as far as phones and networks that do SSH, and your experiences in practice. Happy New Year to all!"
Idokorro offers SSH clients for most J2ME phones, including the various blackberry devices, and also offers one for the Nokia phones with the flip-over keyboard (can't remember the model number). Try Idokorro
--That's the point of being root, you can do anything you want, even if it's stupid.
..is a voice-to-tcp converter. How quickly can you recite IP headers btw?
There's a puTTY client for the series 60 mobile phones, and it certainly works over Australia's Optus mobile network.
Hello. My name is google, I have answers for you.r ceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=ut f-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:officia l
http://www.google.com/search?q=cell+phone+ssh&sou
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
You could always tunnel your SSH connection over SSH... oh wait. But seriously, if it comes down to it, you can setup a ssh server on a more common port like 80, 443 or 25.
My pingtime is 600ms over GPRS and 200ms over UMTS. I've seen it bounce upto 2000ms with boats on the water in NY and not loose a ping.
Myself, I'm using my UMTS Motorola A845 phone as a usb modem, I can still take calls while I vpn and ssh out. Gives me about 3 hours combo surf/talk time before I need to charge, so I leave it plugged in at my desk while I do both.
Nice thing, no matter how much filtering IT does, I just route out over my phone connection... BTW, jerks are filtering some slashdot urls.
Also, While those GPRS phones are only Voice or Data at once, UMTS lets me do both at the same time, I dont have to quit my data session. I havnt tried the bluetooth, but been wanting to see how my pocketpc can ssh out while im on the phone.
UMTS is great, glad that its starting to go nation wide. DO and VO products just are not what you want.
...and talking loudly, I quite often say "SSH" :-)
and then they glare at me. Is that what you meant?
Get a Danger Hiptop from T-Mobile. You turn it on and it just works. It supports web browsing, E-mail with push, AIM, SMS, a regular cell phone, a transparently web-synchronized organizer, some games, a VGA camera, Yahoo Messenger, and SSH (plus several more applications that I haven't tried). You also get an E-mail address and web-based access to your data. Also, the keyboard is the most usable among all the devices I have tried.
The device is $200 and you pay $20/month for unlimited data services. You have to add a voice plan to that; the cheapest is another $10/month, making the device $30/month (1 year commitment).
http://shellinabox.com/
Java applet that does a login shell on my box using CGI. (Very cool, check out the page above.) I use SSL to encrypt the connection.
I also have to borrow someone's computer when I do it -- when I'm out and about.
http://s2putty.sourceforge.net/
I use PuTTY on a Nokia 6600 (Series 60). Excellent and works (very slowly). I use it on O2 UK with MobileWeb settings...shame i've not got a easier way to input onto the phone.
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
The latency can be poor when typing, but what do you expect? It's fine for uttering emergency incantations at a sick server, but I wouldn't want to use it for much else - slow, expensive, tiny screen.
I don't know about over there, but down here, there aren't really any port restrictions over GPRS.
We were able to boot up Kazaa and get leeching (of course, it nearly killed everyone else's connection at the same time).
From the site:
PuTTY is a free SSH client developed by Simon Tatham and others. This page contains a port to the Symbian OS, with support for Series 60 (Nokia 3650, 6600, and N-Gage) and Nokia 9200 Communicator series (Nokia 9210, 9210i, and 9290). The current version contains SSH protocol support, terminal emulation, and a basic user interface. More documentation is available in the distribution.
I would check out the docs if I were you.
--> Insert Funny Sig Here
I've had poor luck with Cingular for GPRS. Including the on-phone GPRS service. I switched over from AT&T and have been unhappy. Hopefully ATTWS will bring some clue to the data side of Cingular. They're also not bluetooth or mac friendly.
has some ssh applications, other than that i'd check out some of the linux based PDA's
back in the day we didnt have no old school
The Orange pay as you go GPRS "extra" seems to allow all ports.
I've used SSH and IRC and AIM and others over it with no problem (apart from the hideous latency mentioned by others). This is with a Zaurus SL-5500 and a T68. The guy at the support desk who I asked before I got it said that I wouldn't be able to unless I was contract, he lied :-P.
One thing to watch out for if you use linux is that the networks (at least orange and t-mobile) ignore LCP echo requests, which makes your connection time out after 2.1 minutes unless you tell the pppd to forget about those.
I've had friends who tried O2 pay as you go GPRS and found it to be strictly limited to a port 80 proxy server.
There are multiple SSH clients for the Pocket PC platform, at least one of which is based on the popular PuTTY Win32 client. Also, many newer PPC phones, such as the iPaq 6315 and iMate PDA2K, include built-in WiFi, which can save you a bit on GPRS costs.
Verizon's CDMA2000 1x EV-DO service is available in certain areas right now (14 cities), and it's going nationwide next year.
It's ~400kbps with decent (~200ms) latency. When you aren't in a EV-DO area, it drops back to the ~80kbps 1xRTT standard, still with decent (~500ms) latency.
$80 a month for unlimited data. You can get a discount if you are using it with a PDA and not a PC.
Same tech, evdo.
I am a heavy user of ssh over gprs (or gsm where gprs is not available):
:-)
I usually don't need/want a laptop when I am traveling so I initially went the PDA+cellphone way.
I have used my old Zaurus SL-5000D with a bluetooth CF-card and a triband SonyEricsson cellphone (T68i, then T630) to ssh into my european servers from Europe (UK, Italy, NL), the US (NYC, LA), Asia (HK, Cambodia, Thailand) and even from Japan, using a rented blutooth-enabled cellphone.
It has always worked flawlessly. I never had any problem with blocked 22 port or anything like that in any of these countries.
I considered the Treo 600 very seriously, but I will stick to my current PDA+cellphone solution. In Japan the Treo would be as useless as my Sony-Ericsson. But it is a lot easier to rent a simple bluetooth-enabled cellphone and use my usual PDA than it would be to rent an integrated local smartphone with an ssh client.
For the networks questions, there are more problems : if the cost is not important (company paid for instance), just use the roaming partners of your cellphone company : the big european players (Vodafone, Orange, T-mobile) usually try to have at least one partner allowing data in every country (be it over gprs or gsm). But it is expensive, and the costs are very difficult to predict. So if you want to optimize, you have to buy pay-as-you-go plans in every country, being careful to choose plans allowing data. You usually have to pay a premium for data but it is a lot cheaper than simply roaming.
The biggest problem then becomes to choose the right simcard from you (huge) collection depending on the place where you are. It can sometimes be tricky like : So I am in Cambodia near the Thailand border and I don't have any Cambodian pay-as-you-go plan. Choices are using my 12Call simcard because i am not far from Thailand and I can see their network from here, or using my SmarTone simcard, roaming through a local network to HongKong, or simply use the local roaming partner of my european network. Which one would be the cheapest??? The answer, found by trying, was using my HongKong pay-as-you-go plan (SmarTone). Please don't ask me why.
Just my two euro-cents.
I use a Nokia 6820 with ATT Wireless/Cingular. It has a fold out keyboard which is quite nice. ATT/Cingular both have unlimited data plans for around $20/mo. ATT Wireless charges extra for data usage by a device hooked up to the phone (Bluetooth, data cable -> laptop) but Cingular does not.
When I need to use SSH and don't have my laptop, I use MIDP SSH, which is free and "good enough." Ideally I'd wish for a bigger screen only. (From your cellphone: http://www.xk72.com/wap)
I've found mobiledia.com's forums to be quite helpful also.
Gabriel Ricard
no problems to report with my Treo600 and Cingular - lag is pretty high though, not something I'd want to use every day but it's sufficent to reboot a server or kill a proc if needed.
I use SprintPCS, the Palmone treo600, and pssh. SprintPCS's network is CDMA so if you're not in the continental United States, and not in or near a metropolitian area, forget about it. For the rest of you I can tell you that it works splendidly, though latent. It'd be difficult to perform any complex task, though not impossible. On the treo the font-size will be tiny. One should consider the treo650 with it's high resolution screen as an alternative.
I should also mention PalmVNC. The bandwidth limitations of the sprintpcs network, and the resolution limitations of the treo600 render this application to little more than a novelty. Though again, in a pinch, it's a usefull app to keep around.
Perhaps you already have a phone that runs java midlets? If so you could try SSH & Telnet Floyd or MIDPSSH.
I've had success using PuTTY for Symbian OS on my Nokia 6600 on O2 - am on a contract (one of the "online" tariffs) with them, and after installation on my phone, it worked straight away with no need to call them up. Haven't had the chance to try with pay-as-you-go however, but contract is fine.
I use o2s basic online deal with my laptop. Its evil bad and wrong but I then use Corkscrew to tunnel through their proxy. Its not great (times out after 10mins [1]) but the deal I have has lots of free access, and it keeps me connected when i'm away for a real connection.
I've also used proxytunnel not sure which I prefer.
[1] Fine when using GNU Screen on the remote system
My setup: T-Mobile w/ "Unlimited Internet", Nokia 3660, Palm Zire 72 (bluetooth to phone).
I've used both the Symbian PuTTY port and various palm SSH apps. They work, but there are some significant problems:
-Latency is huge (I've seen over 2000ms). You'd better type it correctly the first time.
-Input is difficult, particularly when you need non-alphanumberic characters (pipe, braces, escape, control characters). You'll want to figure this out before you need it.
-For the above reasons, you may want to think about something with a small keyboard. Still, remember that the little keyboard is still going to be short on keys. Figure out how to enter the "missing" characters.
-You don't get a "real" IP address. It's a 10.x.x.x address going through a NAT. Be sure that any firewalls or admin tools can cope with that.
-The battery drain for this is pretty significant. I get about two hours total use. That's fine for quick fixes, but you won't want to stay logged in to watch an hours-long database rebuild.
-Given the odd screen size and intermittent connectivity, screen will become your best friend.
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
A couple of months ago I was using my O2 (online tariff) phone to SSH into my computer at home.
You connect using the '915000' number, username=o2wap password=02wap. You may need to manually set the DNS servers, otherwise you can SSH into your machine as you would from any other internet connection. Lags alot (~900ms latency) but otherwise still usable at 9600bps. (I recommend using the -C option to ssh when connecting as this will compress the data.)
I have to say, the Sidekick really comes through for SSH. There are a few keyboard shortcuts you have to learn (and they're pretty much mnemonic once you figure out that Menu==Ctrl, but they're shown in a pop-up dialog if you forget) but braces, brackets, angles, and most other punctuation are all printed on the keyboard.
Sadly, they hurt the keyboard on the Sidekick II by recessing it so you have to hook your thumbs around the case, and by replacing the soft-topped keys with chiclets. The Sidekick 1 (both mono & color) has the best keyboard of any PDA I've ever used.
Battery life is phenomenal; I can stay online all day in AIM and SSH and still have a bar or two left over. Latency is the only real problem, and there is a line-entry mode if you want to type a long/complex command. I also like the way you can maintain several sessions concurrently.
And I am speaking as an owner of the color sidekick - supposedly the newest iteration is significantly enhanced. The only downsides are that
1) the reception isn't 100% (though I hear the newest one is a lot better wrt this).
2) it breaks a lot (though they do have a generous exchange policy).
Anyway, if it's available in your area, I'd definitely consider it. There is no extra charge for any internet usage (about $60/month gives me the package I need) and the ssh app is probably less than $5 to buy. If it doesn't work for you, I hope somebody else benefits from my recommendation.
BTW, I only use SSH from a laptop with a GPRS PC card, so I don't know how well the handset-based applications work.
I've recently hooked myself up with a similar set-up, and have recently been writing about it in my journal. I'll detail it a bit here.
Here's what I'm running:
How everything is connected:
So far, this is a set-up I'm quite pleased with. The only way it could be better were if the Tungsten C supported Bluetooth as well as 802.11b.
I can't recommend Bluetooth highly enough for this sort of connectivity either. So long as I'm within 10m of the phone, I can connect to it from the laptop. And Mac OS X's Bluetooth support is excellent -- I'm able to synchronize my contact list and calendar, transfer files back and forth, send and receive SMS messages from my desktop, dial phone numbers, and connect to the internet -- all without wires, or any set-up hassle.
SSH has been important for me, as one of my primary uses for this sort of connectivity will be CVS source repository access through SSH.
I've only had the phone for a week, but I'm quite pleased with it in general. I could have done without the camera portion I suppose (the resolution and quality is terrible), but might come in handy for something someday.
Overall, the set-up appears to be working well, and I'm as pleased as punch with it. Everything is nicely portable, and I have instant access everywhere I go. Set-up has been a snap, and everything works as expected. Now if only I could get cable modem speeds out of this set-up, I'd never work at a desk ever again :).
Yaz.
I bet you wouldn't want to run SSH on your desktop without a keyboard. So why would you want to on your phone?
IMO these devices are perfect for remote access:
http://www.nokia.com/phones/9300
http://www.nokia.com/phones/9500
The 9500 (big with Wifi & camera) has just arrived in the stores and the 9300 (smallet, more elegant, but without the former) will arrive this month. I'm probable going to get myself and my GF a 9300 later this year.
I wouldn't know about networks and prepaid stuff or the UK situation. Currently I use a Clie TG50 PDA with a SE T630 phone and I have been able to use SSH anywhere with my GPRS account (keyboard scuks, tho...). Since GPRS is usually billed by the MB, SSH tends to be very cheap even when I use it abroad.
X.
I use a Treo 600, on Vodafone (Ireland) using http://http//seaiesoftware.com/pssh/ pssh it's ok, but low encryption but runs fast and sleek.
Have had no problem is Vodafone and port 22, so it should work in england and France (I you get stuck in the shit hole)..,
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"Clutch my testes, bloody squirrel humpers!!"
-Happy Noodle Boy
While a nice idea, how is that any different than downloading a copy of PuTTY, and how does that help me when I need to SSH into a sick server while out:
1) Biking
2) Hiking
3) Skiing
4) Backpacking
5) Traveling (waiting for, or on the plane, train, etc)
Or how about just getting non-discretely connected when I'm out:
1) Dancing
2) Walking
3) At the movies
4) On a date
Dude. If you're on a date, do you really think you should be non-discretely getting connected to a server via SSH? Oh that's right, we're speaking figuratively here. ;P
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Well, yes - I'd rather step away for a few minutes to fix a broken service/server than have to head home, or elsewhere, to get online and fix it.
I use PuTTY on a