Remote Administration

For securing communications it's better use ssh instead telnet. You can download binary openssl and openssh from rpmfind.net/linux/RPM. In Win95 you can download putty (support telnet & ssh), this ssh client is better than native win95 telnet client.
If you want remote X you must use XServer application like Xwin32.

I do agree with the last answer telnet is not secure. There are other options, you should install ssl and ssh. Might i suggest you install webmin, it requires perl and you should you the option to use ssl with it. webmin will run on you linux box onany port you choose the default is 10000.it has the options to restrict or allow by ip who can connect or who can't. All you need is a web browser on your windows box, point it at the given address for webmin on your linux box. Login and you can administrate your entire linux machine from your windows web browser.
here's the url
http://www.webmin.com

I agree too that telnet is not secure and this is an advice from security experts, its better to use ssh or ssl. Download any windows program which supports ssh or better use PenguiNet and install ssh to your linux box. Make sure on your configurations of your ssh so that you could remotely administer your machine.

Personally, I'd use VNC.

It's probablly already installed with RH 6.1, so log into a telnet session, and at the command line type

vncserver

You'll want to be logged in as root at the time, so you may need to use the command

su

to switch to root before starting VNC.

Vnc will ask you for a password, and then start with a message which will include a port number. Once running, you can connect to vnc through IE/Netscape if you go to...

http://ip.address.of.box:portnumber

The portnumber will be the one you saw earlier plus 5800 (probablly 5801). This will start an X session which will allow you to have a command line that works properly.

VNC instructions and stuff are available at

http://www.cam-orl.co.uk/vnc/winvnc.html

if you need more help, send me an email, I'll do my best.

Kev.

I see by one of your replies to an answer that you are mostly interested in setting up mail aliasing (converting one recipient name to another). I'm assuming you're running Sendmail as your Mail Transfer Agent (MTA)? If so, you will need to look in your /etc/sendmail.cf file to see what the aliases file name is (type "grep AliasFile /etc/sendmail.cf" -- you'll see something like AliasFile=/etc/aliases). You then want to edit that alias file with a text editor like vi or emacs and make an entry for your local username -- let's say username 'bob' -- that looks like this:

bob: bob@otherserver.com

This will redirect mail coming to bob@yourhost.com to bob@otherserver.com.

Then you save the changes to your file (ESC :wq in vi, or Ctrl-X Ctrl-S in emacs).

Sendmail can be very complicated to understand. If you are still in contact with your former sysadmin, and he's telling you to "learn the files and change them by hand" ask him to at least tell you what files to change for agiven task. That shouldn't take too much of his time, and will at least start you down the path to learning it yourself.

Tools like webmin and linuxconf can also be a boon to inexperienced users; you will have to do a little research online to learn about them.

http://www.linuxnewbies.org/ is a great site for new Linux users. They have a collection of "Newbie-ized" help files that are much easier to understand than most generic Linux HOWTOs.

I also recommend reading books like "Running Linux" (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/runux3/) or "Linux Network Administrator's Guide" (NAG) (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linag2/).

Good luck!

Whoops! I meant to enter the URL for LinuxNewbie.org (http://www.linuxnewbie.org/). linuxnewbieS.org also has lots of good info, but wasn't the site I was originally thinking of... =8^)

In reply to your questions in #2. Yes i have used webmin for quite some time, i have never had a problem with webmin handling files incorrectly.You said you mainly want to route mail, webmin has modules for sendmail,post fix and qmail. I do agree you should learn what's involved and how to manually edit the files,I am still learning how to do that also. I had this tool recommended to me by some really good (in my opinion) admins. It works well, it's is well supported by the people on the webminmailing list. I would recommend trying it, but continue to learn and understand the files it interfaces with. Either way it's up to you and i wish you the best of luck with what ever route you choose.

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