I would appreciate any help with the following problem.
I have a system with 3 different computers/OSes.
They are Red Hat Linux Enterprise WS 4.5, LynxOS, and Solaris 8.
I need to be able to do an rsh with a command from the Linux box to the other two. I have made numerous changes which I will describe below, but still no luck with what I need to do. I am doing the rsh as root.
Currently, Linux will rsh with a command to itself, LynxOS will rsh with a command to itself and to Solaris, and Solaris will rsh with a command to itself and to LynxOS. All of them will rsh without a command to each other (basically rlogin). But Linux will not rsh with a command to LynxOS or Solaris and neither LynxOS or Solaris will rsh with a command to Linux. From Linux I get "poll: protocol failure in circuit setup" after several seconds. From LynxOS, I get "host: No route to host". From Solaris, I get "host: connection timed out". Using ssh is not an option since the other two machines do not have it available.

The changes that I have made to Linux are:

verified /etc/xinetd.d/rsh is correct
did chkconfig rexec on
did chkconfig rsh on
did chkconfig rlogin on
Added rsh, rexec, and rlogin to /etc/securetty
restarted xinetd
check iptables file to make sure not part of firewall
added itself and other hosts to /root/.rhosts (made permissions 600 and also tried 644)
Made sure /etc/nologin does not exist
Verified /etc/pam.d/rsh is correct5
Added all 3 hosts to /etc/hosts.allow (e.g. ALL : host)
Added all 3 hosts to /etc/hosts.equiv (e.g. host root)

I have made similar changes to LynxOS and Solaris as appropriate including:
the root home .rhosts
/etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.equiv

Thanks,

Ken

You need to make an .rhosts file and populate it with the IP address (or hostname) of the machine that will be rsh-ing

For example...to run something from the Linux machine into the Solaris machine (as root); you will need to make a .rhosts file inside root's home directory and put the IP address of the Linux machine.

Then (as root) you can rsh a command to the Solaris machine (and since you added the .rhosts file inside root's home directory it will run the command as root).

-C

Thanks for the input.

I have a .rhosts file inside the Linux root home directory (/root), inside the LynxOS root home directory (/), and inside the Solaris root home directory (/) with all the hosts names (the host names are inside each machine's /etc/hosts file). I believe that I had at one point tried IP addresses with no luck. It just seems to be the rsh with command that has a problem.

Thanks,

Ken

What errors are you getting? What is the output of the rsh command?

-C

From the original post

From Linux rsh to LynxOS or Solaris, I get "poll: protocol failure in circuit setup" after several seconds.
From LynxOS rsh to Linux, I get "host: No route to host".
From Solaris rsh to Linux, I get "host: connection timed out".

I have since done some digging and found the following which has helped.

If I disable the firewall on Linux (iptables) OR add TCP ports 1011 - 1023 to the accept list, the rsh from Linux to LynxOS or Solaris works.

But the rsh from Solaris to Linux will only seem to work if I disable the firewall on Linux.

Thanks,

Ken

On the Linux firewall open 975:tcp


-C

Thanks for the suggestion.

I will try it the next chance I get.

Out of curiousity, why tcp port 975?

I see an item in the solaris /etc/services for something to do with security, but nothing in the linux /etc/services.

Thanks,

Ken

Not sure why port 975...

I had a similar problem (rsh-ing from Solaris to Linux). So I tried rsh-ing from Solaris to Linux and fired up my packet sniffer (wireshark) and found out that Solaris was trying to rsh on port 975 to the Linux box. So I opened up post 975 on my Linux firewall, and it worked!

Hopefully it works for you...but if it doesn't i HIGHLY suggest using a packet sniffer to find out what the problem is.

FWIW Solaris has a "built-in" packet sniffer - man snoop for more information...

You can try using that...

-C

Opening TCP port 975 did not work, but thanks for the idea.

I have not had time to try the packet sniffer yet, but hope to soon.

Thanks,

Ken