I think that this subject is somehow complicated for folks like myself that are not familiar with the zillions of terms you find on linux man pages such as : magic numbers,hosts,sysconfig,DNS,IP,masquerades,firewalls,http,ftp,socket,bind,accept,multicast,route..ju st to name a few .
Assuming that there is a way (for good and for bad) of reaching and actually perform tasks on remote computers, are there any groups providing simpler services such as installing software and configurating other people's systems, from a remote machine ? (the reason i'm saying simpler services is that there are already experts providing these, only far more complex and expensive that one can imagine ).
If there is already such a type of services, where can i find them and why are they not being more properly advertized and developped by this community? ( note that i'm not pretending that those services would be free, on the contrary, since there must be a whole lot more of us linux users than people think ,dying to get their system running properly with whichever programs they might want to ) . This site is actually a good example of the idea that has made linux so popular : it's good,safe,free and it cares for people's needs of getting things done and most of all, folks trust it . So why not become ,along with the concept of LINUXQUESTIONS.ORG, a Linux consulting site ( for newbies,experts,and others interested) based on professional services under a paid fee ? (don't mean to offend those who started and maintain this site).
Probably those who really understand the security implications of such an act refuse to even comment about it ,but as i said before i'm null to this subject so what i can do is probably dream on . Sorry for the space spent .



* What makes Sammy run ? *

There's of course, like telnet, ftp,rsh, and most secure ssh. Look no further than secure shell (ssh), and you might want to read about it first. http://www.ssh.com/products/ssh/

I took a look at the site , it looked like they offer this ssh for workstation purposes and it's free , really cool.
But since you answered , i would ask a direct question . How difficult is it to make this happen? I read that telnet is not a secure interface , but could someone perform actions upon a distant computer and not just communicate with another host through this telnet protocol ? Could you , actually get into a remote computer and install software, or configure a firewall ,for example ?
I guess it sound suspectious but i want to try to do this just for the purpose i mentioned before . I read some of the telnet otions (host , port ,user,enable,etc...)What is necessary to have two machines talking to each other ? if you cannot explain this in a brief explanation , can you tell me where else to find information about it ?


apreciate your help .

i found out some info on man pages about ssh


My machine has to be a server, to allow this ? how can someone prove his identity in order to establish communication ? thanks again

key pairs