Hi all

This is a bit of a broad question so just need some links or tut pointers as I have no clue where to start.

I have

Desktop FC5, setup for 4 users, connected to router
Laptop Ubuntu wireless to router
Printer canon ip4000r connected to router.
PDA wireless connected to router

Very small homenetwork and network connection.

I spend most of my time on the laptop but have been using FC5 on the desktop quite a bit lately and learning stuff, updates, etc. Trouble is as there are four people who are on it I find it difficult to get on and say play around with yum updates and things I need to learn.

What I thought would be good is being able to access the FC5 desktop from my laptop and remotely do package installs, and all the things you normally are mucking arund with when you are tinkering with Fedora, all the while someone else is logged on as their user under FC5.

Dont know if I have explained myself very well but looking forward to any comments or pointers on where I should be looking.

Am a network newbie and just setting this small network up was a real learning experience with static ips and local dns and all that scary stuff. The only thing I havent resolved yet is WPA acess to my router on Ubuntu. Got plenty to read on that though.

Cheers

Gimmee

I'm not too experienced with FC but what you want to do is as follows:

1) Find how you access a command-line (text only) version of yum or whatever other program you use for administration.

2) Get an OpenSSH server working on the desktop (search online HOWTOs for this).

Also, by checking through the howtos, you want to make sure your sshd_config file (probably at /etc/ssh/sshd_config, and you must be root to edit it) includes the following lines:

AllowTcpForwarding no
# prevents forwarding of ports to remote user
X11Forwarding no
# prevents forwarding of X11 (graphical)
PermitRootLogin no
# prevents root from SSHing in
PermitEmptyPasswords no
# prevents empty passwords
AllowUsers username
# this allows only the specified users to log in
# replace username with a list of usernames (separated by a single space) which can login
# keep this to the absolute minimum

The lines beginning with # are comments, and are ignored when the file is read by sshd (the daemon program that allows SSH logins). I put them in there to explain what the lines do.

Most of this stuff is for security.

Now, you can ssh to your desktop from the command line of your laptop as follows:
where username is your username and X.X.X.X is the IP of the desktop.

You now have a command prompt as username. If you want to do administrative tasks, you'll need root, so you need to execute the "su" command, type in the root password, and you are root.

I won't give a big warning on root, but be sure that you ONLY use root for tasks that NEED it. You can do a lot of damage as root, so make sure nobody else has access to a root shell, and only use it when needed. When you get a little more comfortable, you should look into "sudo".

Now, this has all been assuming that you can deal with a text only environment. If you want graphical, as long as you're going form a Linux box to a Linux box, you can do as follows:

Modify sshd_config so that you have:
X11Forwarding yes

this will allow you to forward graphical programs from the desktop (where you setup sshd and are SSHing to) to the computer you're at.

To use this:
(this tells tSSH to forward X, the graphical system)
(now, if you need to, you can su to root)

now, if you execute a graphical program, it will show up on your laptop (the computer you're at) but actually be running on the server (the desktop).

I'm sure there are many tutorials on this...

Thats an excellent start, thanks for that.

I use sudo on ubuntu most of the time and usually use su on fedora so that will be no problems. I am getting better at command line stuff under linux but do forget alot of command line stuff when i dont use it so graphical would be good as well.

Thanks again.

Will go searching on that stuff

Cheers

gimmee

You could run a Telnet server on the machine you want to remotely connect to. From there, you can do everything you need from the command line from a remote location - even a windows machine.

You can also connect to the X-server on the laptop over a network.

Telnet does what SSH does, but is NOT encrypted. Passwords and all other data are sent in clear text.

If any machines in your network are connected to the internet (whether through a firewall or not) I would recommend using SSH.