Newbie help required with remote login

**Oliver Sedlacek** · 04-10-2003

I've installed Mandrake 9.1 on a small server box that sits in the cupboard under the stairs. I'd like to administer it remotely from a windows machine, so that I don't have to go down and plug in a keyboard and monitor. From what I've read, I guess I need telnet or SSH. Can someone please tell me some web addresses where I can get more info.

**craig_mcd** · 04-10-2003

Dont use telnet, use openssh.The official site is here, the latest version of openssh is 3.6.1.

As for the windows client, on my 2k machine I use putty, it seems to do the job well enough.

**Oliver Sedlacek** · 04-10-2003

Craig,
thanks for the link to putty. I've already had a poke around the openssh web site and the problem is that I'm blown away. The fact that there are so many parts to it has dented my confidence. I guess that what I need is a step by step idiots guide.

**Dolda2000** · 04-10-2003

Probably you don't have to worry about openssh, since it's most likely already installed and running on your Linux box.

**kpzani** · 04-10-2003

I use telnet at the minute. not for much admin - just checking log files and administering apache. I installed the telnet server package (from the mandrake cdroms) then goto /etc/xinetd.d and you'll see a file called telnet or something similar. open it and change disabled =yes to disabled = no or something like that anyway.

then on your windows box go START / RUN type telnet.
depending on your version of windows you may then have a command line in which type open ipaddress or a mini gui in which select connect from the menu and enter your ip address.

hope it works. also saw software called tight vnc (http://www.tightvnc.com/) but couldn't get it working. but them i tend to break most of my installations eventually!

**Dolda2000** · 04-10-2003

Whether you're going with a telnet or ssh connection, do use putty as your client program. It has telnet support also, and is undescribably much better than Windows' telnet.

**craig_mcd** · 04-10-2003

I wouldnt use the vnc protocol. It can be brute forced quite easily, it doesnt use a username/password pair just a password.
Telnet is even worse as usernames/passwords can be sniffed off the wire as everything is transmitted in clear text.

Stick with openssh, its your best bet for remote administration.

**Dolda2000** · 04-10-2003

As I understood, this was just going to be used on the LAN, right? In that case I'd say telnet is pretty OK.
If you will be using it over the internet, however, I'd very much recommend against telnet, just like craig says.
If you want a graphical tunnel, set up an X server for Windows and use SSH's X11 forwarding (you'll have to enable it manually in putty). That's both secure and pretty fast.

**Oliver Sedlacek** · 04-10-2003

I just want to work over the LAN, but it is connected to the internet via ADSL modem. The ADSL box does NAT, so I haven't seen any attacks. I had a look in xinetd.d and it's completely empty, so I guess I haven't got the telent server installed (I did a "truely tiny" install, so I'm not too surprised). There's a telnet client RPM on the install CDROM, but I can't see a server RPM. Anyone know what it's called?

Thanks, Oliver

**Dolda2000** · 04-10-2003

The RedHat packet is simply called telnet-server. I don't know if mdk uses the same names, though.

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