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Smartphones For Text SSH Use Re-Revisited

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the serious-business dept.

Kainaw writes "This was asked in 2005 and 2008. I think it should be revisited yet again... With iPhone, Android, and Windows smartphones running around, which (if any) of them are well-suited to Unix/Linux server administration on the run? SSH is a must. A good screen resolution. A physical keyboard won't block the screen with a virtual keyboard. Many physical keyboards omit the numeric keys now, making the typing of numbers rather difficult. Nearly every smartphone has WiFi capability now. Some will do an X display through SSH tunnelling. So, pushing through all the bells and whistles that have nothing to do with effective server administration, what is left?"

20 of 359 comments (clear)

  1. The N900. by sethstorm · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hardware keyboard, ships with xterm, has easily accessible number keys, and no jailbreaking needed.

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    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    1. Re:The N900. by CRCulver · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree. I regularly use the N900 for SSH sessions with several servers. It runs Debian, so there's no much of a learning curve. There's a physical keyboard that you can easily remap for your own purposes.

    2. Re:The N900. by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Informative

      While n900 beats anything Droid in customizability, the default keymap is worse than abysmal. Please use for example mine, save it as /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/nokia_vndr/rx-51; the new assignments use Fn-Shift (or Fn where it's unused).

      Having no basic symbols like |, [, ], , {, }, % or ~, or keys like PgUp, PgDn or Esc makes any Unix administration or programming a bad joke. Having to request an on-screen keyboard for those is unacceptable -- it's not an iToy! Fortunately, we can fix it.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    3. Re:The N900. by HRH_H_Crab · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not Debian enough for you? Chroot it: http://wiki.maemo.org/Easy_Debian

    4. Re:The N900. by Skal+Tura · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Uhm, generally speaking you do not want to do any complex things or coding with your phone unless it's an emergency... In which case, as long as it can do it somewhat conveniently it's really OK.

      Anything requiring more than a few simple commands, i'll find a real computer.

      --
      Pulsed Media Seedboxes
  2. Re:i'm interested in an android app for ssh tunnel by cez · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not sure about android, but MidpSSH works wonders on my Blackberry, they probably have an android version. Used it just last night in a bind!

    --
    Walk with Music;
  3. Re:i'm interested in an android app for ssh tunnel by tom17 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I second this. I have been using ConnectBot and it works great on my HTC Desire. Just don;t leave connections running in the background... it drinks battery like it's going out of style when you do that.

  4. If you run a blackberry check out BBSSH! by HIghoS · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://bbssh.org/wiki/en/Home

    The author just released 2.0 with huge improvements. I've been using it for nearly half a year now, previously on a Storm and now on a Torch. It's great, it even works well with things like screen and irssi. It's great being able to login to my servers remotely anywhere, check screen sessions and even if I want to hop on IRC if need be! For those familiar with MidpSSH this is basicly it on steriods, but done properly.

  5. N97/N97 mini with PuTTy for Symbian by CoolVibe · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...and specifically the touch UI one for Symbian S60v5. It's PuTTy. Oh, you want an URL with that... Try http://bd.kicks-ass.net/koodaus/putty/

  6. Nokia n900 by Theolojin · · Score: 5, Informative

    It runs real Linux with real root (out of the box). It has a real xterm and bash is installable. It runs xorg. It's a fantastic phone. However, it doesn't have separate number keys which can be a pain if you're typing a lot of numbers. A cool feature of the xterm is it puts Ctrl, Tab, Esc, PgUp, and PgDn on-screen to work with the physical keyboard. It's great for remote server administration. I wouldn't want to work on it all day, but it's not meant for that, either.

    --
    Life is short; think quickly.
  7. HTC MyTouch 3G Slide works OK by rwa2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm fairly happy with my cheap-ass HTC Slide running CyanogenMOD . You can get them for about half the price of the big expensive Android phones.
    http://trumblings.blogspot.com/2010/11/migrating-to-android-for-palm-linux.html

    Keyboard pic

    The ConnectBot SSH client can do port forwarding, so you can set up a secure tunnel for androidVNC (which is probably better than X forwarding as far as maintaining persistent sessions across mobile networks go). The phone supports T-mobile HSDPA network, which can give you noticeably lower latency than EDGE / GPRS, and near-DSL speeds. Your ssh sessions stay connected in the background until you tell them to disconnect, and the keyboard is pretty comfortable to use.

    Some random notes:

    • + Terminal with default font is 80x25!
    • + the trackpad button is the Ctrl key, hitting it twice sends the Esc key. Works great with screen.
    • - no cursor buttons, and the trackpad can be quite finicky when trying to send several l/r u/d
    • - the HTC Slide uses the older ARMv6 cpu, so no 3D-intensive apps like Google Earth Mobile or high-end games. Other than that, it runs everything fine
    • - sending some special characters in ConnectBot can be a chore, such as pipes and < > ... need to call up the softkeyboard for those, by first closing the physical keyboard, tapping on the softkeyboard icon, then calling up the "num" then "alt" keyboard :-/ . Probably better to make aliases for your often-used command strings. But that's something that could be remedied in software, hopefully... ConnectBot doesn't appear to use the physical Symbol key well.
  8. iPhone with iSSH by trevc · · Score: 5, Informative

    iPhone with iSSH by Zinger-Soft works great for me. You can use an external Bluetooth keyboard. Nice thing is, you can run the iPad version as well for the one price. www.zinger-soft.com

  9. Re:i'm interested in an android app for ssh tunnel by clang_jangle · · Score: 3, Informative

    I believe MidpSSH is quite out of date, but Marc Paradise's BBSH is based on it, and it's a vast improvement.

    --
    Caveat Utilitor
  10. Re:i'm interested in an android app for ssh tunnel by yog · · Score: 3

    ConnectBot on a Google Nexus One. It just works. You can configure the display to 40x23 or 42x24 or whatever font fits best on screen versus your desired font size. The trackball acts as a control key and alt key: one press = CTRL, double press = ALT. (a must for Emacs and vi users)

    My only complaint is that it doesn't remember passwords the way AndFTP does (another excellent tool, by the way). I'd like to not have to type in the darned password every time, but oh well, it's a lot better than no ssh.

    It's also kinda neat that you can view the scrollback simply by dragging the screen back. Why don't all computers work that way?

    Last, and best of all, it's a free app. I haven't tried the other ssh clients out there, honestly, but since this one works, I haven't felt the need.

    --
    it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
  11. Small Netbook and WWAN card. by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Honestly, if you SSH in a LOT using a phone will anger you a lot. I got a tiny netbook with a WWAN card (inside!)
    Dell mini 10 with a pciE wwan card works great. and it is small enough to carry with me everywhere.

    I'd end up killing people if I had to spend more that 30 seconds working in SSH on a phone.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:Small Netbook and WWAN card. by ScentCone · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'd end up killing people if I had to spend more that 30 seconds working in SSH on a phone.

      It's possible you should consider a different line of work. Perhaps landscaping (no chainsaws, though, for you), or something like playing the panflute in one of those fake ethnic bands that work city parks.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  12. Re:i'm interested in an android app for ssh tunnel by s4ltyd0g · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just prefix each command with :; and the capitalization problem goes away. At first that quirk used to drive me crazy, but there's no need to use a secondary console.

  13. Re:Physical Keyboard is a must... by thisisntme · · Score: 3, Informative

    really? apart from the egregious mistake of not including a backtick on anything but one obscure email keyboard

    Hold down the apostrophe key for a second or two, it pops up a number of different quotes, including the backtick.

  14. Re:i'm interested in an android app for ssh tunnel by MoxFulder · · Score: 3, Informative

    I use ConnectBot on my Samsung Moment. Has a physical keyboard and works great, can do pubkey authentication, all the bells and whistles. Big thumbs up... ConnectBot is an extremely well-designed and open-source app.

    --
    My bicyles
  15. Re:i'm interested in an android app for ssh tunnel by HIghoS · · Score: 3, Informative

    As mentioned elsewhere in these posts, give BBSSH a try. It does not have this annoying tendency. What you type in your blackberry keyboard is what you get and if you want to use caps you need to hold down the shift key just like a real keyboard. I cannot stress how amazing BBSSH is, once you start to really get use to it and learn about swipes (literally almost like gestures of a sorts) it's great and quickly I can use it almost as fast as a putty/xterm session.