Setting Up a Linux Box for Remote Administration

[SteeZ420]

Hey,

I am interested in setting up a Linux box that I can access remotely for simple shell programming and basic network administration practices, mainly as an educational tool to learn Linux. I will be accessing the box through other Windows boxes that we have in the house, all of which are connected on the same home network. I would like to also be able to access the box from anywhere in the world over the Internet, providing I can do it securely and safely, without endangering the other computers on my network. I will be more than likely using Ubuntu as the distro on my linux box, however Mandrake is another possibility.

1) What sort of configuration settings do I have to set in order to allow the box to be accessed remotely?

2) What sort of security risks would I be taking in allowing connections outside my network in to access the box, and what can I do to minimize those risks? (Not so much for the Linux box, but the risks to the other computers on my network)

3) Is there any possibility of a Remote Desktop application that I can use from a Windows machine that will allow me to view and use the GUI on my linux box?

Any help or direction is greatly appreciated,

Mike

[deathadder]

Welcome to Just Linux

SSH would be your best bet, you can forward X over network connections so you can use Putty on Windows to view your GUI apps.

As for security over the internet...I've never used SSH outside of a LAN so I don't know.

You might be interested in this: http://www.linux.com/feature/119744
http://polishlinux.org/apps/ssh-tricks/
http://polishlinux.org/apps/cli/ssh-with-putty/

[SteeZ420]

Hey,

Thanks for the quick response. I'm installing Ubuntu as we speak and I'll make sure to setup SSH when I'm able. If anyone else knows anything related to the security of side of things please let me know.

Thanks again,

Mike

[i845_]

3) Is there any possibility of a Remote Desktop application that I can use from a Windows machine that will allow me to view and use the GUI on my linux box?

You could use VNC (tunneled over SSH)...

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Here's what the Wikipedia has to say about VNC:


Virtual Network Computing (or VNC) is a graphical desktop sharing system used to remotely control another computer. It transmits the keyboard and mouse events from one computer to another, relaying the graphical screen updates back in the other direction, over a network.

VNC is platform-independent — a VNC viewer on any operating system can usually connect to a VNC server on any other operating system. There are clients and servers for almost all GUI operating systems and for Java. Multiple clients may connect to a VNC server at the same time.

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[retsaw]

For security it is recommended that you use ssh keys for logging in rather than a password.

For a remote GUI, you might want to try FreeNX, which should give better performance than regular X forwarding or VNC. It might however be harder to set up than VNC. The last time I tried it, which was admittedly quite a while ago, I had trouble connecting to the the FreeNX server from Windows even though connecting from the same machine using a livecd worked, with any luck though it will be easier to set up now so you may not have the trouble I did.

[spowel4]

For a remote GUI, you might want to try FreeNX, which should give better performance than regular X forwarding or VNC. It might however be harder to set up than VNC. The last time I tried it, which was admittedly quite a while ago, I had trouble connecting to the the FreeNX server from Windows even though connecting from the same machine using a livecd worked, with any luck though it will be easier to set up now so you may not have the trouble I did.

FreeNX (available from http://www.nomachine.com) is easier now than it was. I had lots of trouble before just like retsaw did but now, after loading Ubuntu 7.10 and installing FreeNX on it, connecting to it from Windows XP couldn't be easier. All I did on the Windows box was install the FreeNX client, enter in the ip to connect to, the username to use, and boom it connected via ssh. No more having to mess with the ssh keys!