Remote Distributed Computing with the r* Toolset

What We Can Do

• Remote management(web,database,ecommerce)

What we Cannot Do

• Deeply coupled processes
• Deep interdepdenace processes

The r* Toolset

• rcp - copies files to/from remote host
• rsh - excutes commands on remote host
• rlogin - starts terminal session on remote host
• rdist - maintains identical copies of files on remote hosts

Security Issues

• Ssh - is supposed to be drop in compatible
• Export controls debacle - encryption only works with kerberos
• Who gets on - decide who gets on
• Kerberos - only really needed in extremely large networks
• DOS - Denial of Service, part of life

Security Precautions

• /etc/inetd.conf
• /etc/services
• /etc/passwd
• /etc/auth.conf

Remote Machine Setup

• ~/.rhosts
• /etc/hosts (example)
• /etc/hosts.equiv (example)
• order of search is IP, name in /etc/hosts, and named

Control Host(s) Setup

• /etc/hosts

UNIX tools

• awk
• grep
• sed
• tar
• gzip