best app for remote administration?

[bezdomny]

What, if any, are the advantages of putty/ssh over a remote desktop environment like KRDC for remote administration? Presently I I use KRDC to remotely administer a Debian Etch box used by my mother, who lives a couple of hundred miles away. Thanks for your insight and time to comment.

[bigtomrodney]

Well ssh is command line based and has less of a bandwidth requirement. So if you're comfortable with the command line it is good for that alone.

However things get really interesting when you realise you can use X forwarding and sshfs. Essentially you can run on the command line, and start specific graphical applications when required rather than running a full desktop all of the time. Then sshfs lets you mount the remote filesystem if needed so you can copy, paste or interact with remote files.

If you need to edit a config file, why not just mount the remote directory - all encrypted through ssh of course - and the edit it using the tools on your desktop. I'm a big fan of ssh

[Sporkman]

You could also try Webmin - it's a web-based admin app.

[bezdomny]

Thank you, bigtom and Sporkman. Also, do I understand correctly it's possible with putty/ssh to remotely log-in? Presently I rely on my mother to physically be there at least at the beginning of the session to log in. I'd like to relieve her of that inconvenience, if possible. Is it possible to remotely log-in with webmin? What can you tell me about that? Thanks!

[Sporkman]

Is it possible to remotely log-in with webmin? What can you tell me about that? Thanks!

IIRC, you can enter terminal commands through webmin. It also gives you graphical interfaces for user account admin, services, etc. Here's the website: Webmin

[bezdomny]

Thanks again, Sporkman, especially for the link. I'll take a look at it.

[jledhead]

here are 2 good solutions (actually the same, one is gpl and one isn't) and they connect over ssh
FreeNX - the free NX
NoMachine NX - Desktop Virtualization and Remote Access Management Software

what I would really like to see is a version of logmein for linux

[bezdomny]

Thanks, jledhead. I'm looking into it now.