[sf-lug] I need your Linux thoughts!

[Zach Hanna]

At most small businesses or home offices machines are not on a public IP,
and most of the time the folks on site do not have access to the admin UI
to change port forwarding on the router or internet gateway.
I would suggest using the easiest closed or open source product such as
Team Viewer to establish an initial connection on the remote end (if they
have a GUI) and then taking control through that and setting up firewall
rules, remote SSH, etc.
You may also want to look into reverse SSH tunneling which would allow you
to punch a hole in a NAT connection and work forward from there and forward
SSH and VNC from there.

On Friday, April 19, 2013, John F. Strazzarino wrote:

> A work project...
>
> A very small number of our customers use Linux and one of them is having
> an issue.
>
> Here's what needs to be done:
>
> 1) We need to remotely log into their computer. Computer is in Salt Lake
> City.
> 2) We need to issue a few commands on their system.
>
> Here's the challenge:
>
> 1) We have NO idea (NO idea) which version of Linux (or Unix) they are
> using.
> 2) We'll have to assume that they person in front of the computer is not
> at all computer-literate..
> 3) We don't know what additional software is on the computer
>
> Questions:
>
> 1) Which remote control software is dirt-simple to install and run?
> (Hamachi, RealVNC, etc) or could we use something like SSH?  REMEMBER, the
> person behind the computer knows NOTHING about computers.  We need to get
> access to their computer to do our work.
>
> Assumptions/Guesses:
>
> 1) We're guessing that they have either Red Hat Fedora or Ubuntu
> 2) We're hoping that they have the root password (which I guess we need to
> install software)
> 3) There is commercial software on the computer and we MAY be able to quiz
> the software company about how to access the computer, etc.  However, it
> sounds like the software company is not being very forthcoming with
> information.  However, they must have some sort of remote access software,
> otherwise how could they install updates/patches to their software?
>
> Also:
>
> I've just started to research this, so sorry about not providing more info.
>
> Thanks
>
> John
>
>
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