11/30/2005 -- The days of physically needing to sit before the computer or server you are working on are quickly dwindling. Whereas proximity once figured directly into response time, you can now perform most administrative tasks from anywhere. Over a decade ago, dial-in capabilities existed, but they were clunky and tried to lock you into a command line interface that involved more pleading and praying than actually administering.

The tools today bear scant resemblance to those tools of yesterday. Connectivity is now done through the Internet instead of the phone line, and are becoming standard with Linux and most other OS versions as well -- eliminating the need for third-party vendors. With the connectivity speed no longer a bottleneck, the tools have become graphical and as easy to use as anything running locally.

In this article, we will take a look at the remote tools that exist with SuSE (Professional and Server) and Novell Linux Desktop. We will also look at printer administration through the CUPS interface. These are representative of the Linux distributions now in use and they offer tools similar to those found elsewhere.

To enable remote administration of an SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) server, simply follow these steps:

1. Log in as root and start YaST.
2. Choose Network Services and Remote Administration .
3. The Remote Administration configuration dialog shown in Figure One opens (see Figure 1 below). Click Allow Remote Administration.
4. Choose to allow remote administration.
5. Click Finish. The display manager must be restarted, after which the server can be accessed via port 5801.

Figure 1: Enabling remote administration on a SuSE server.

To administer it remotely, enter the following in a browser (replace host with the IP address of your machine):

http:// host :5801

A Virtual Network Session (VNS) window will open, and you will be prompted for a username and password. At the prompt for these items, you can click the Administration button instead and YaST will be initiated (requiring you to enter the root password).

Enabling Desktop Sharing
Novell Linux Desktop, and SuSE Professional allow you to configure desktop sharing. This is useful when you want to share your desktop with a user (or vice versa) and show them how to do a task, or see what they are doing that is causing a problem. To implement this, on the first workstation access the Applications menu in KDE. Choose System, Remote Access, Desktop Sharing and choose to share the desktop (Create Personal Invitation). This will bring up a Personal Invitation with needed information for the second party to use, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The information needed to create the connection.

On the second workstation, go to System, Remote Access, Remote Desktop Connection and enter the host information given. Be certain to include the whole host address, including the colon and the display number. If you leave off the colon and display number, the connection cannot be made.

A warning will appear on this workstation that a connection is being established. You must accept the connection. The user at the first workstation must now enter the password as given, and the connection will be established. On the second workstation, it is possible to open and run any application(s). The first workstation will show the desktop as if it is another window. In this manner, the user may watch what is being done, as well as take control by clicking on anything or entering any values within that window that might be desired.

The remote desktop connection ends when the user closes the window. Very briefly, a pop-up dialog box will appear indicating that the connection has been closed.

To access the Web Administration tools, simply access port 631 on the server. These tools allow you to remotely manage the printers and jobs, as well as do administrative tasks such as add/manage classes, manage jobs and add/manage printers. The server is the system on which the CUPS daemon is running. If you're on that machine, the easiest URL to use is http://localhost:631; whereas from another machine, simply use http:// ip_addrress_of_host :631. Figure 3 shows the opening screen:

Figure 3: The opening screen of the CUPS Web interface.

If you choose Do Administration Tasks, the choices that present themselves are:

• Classes: You can add and manage classes.
• Jobs: You can manage jobs.
• Printers: You can add or manage printers.

To add a new printer, you must supply the name, location, and description on the first dialog box, and then choose the device. Choices for device include all the serial ports, parallel ports, LPD/LPR and USB, as well as Windows Printer via SAMBA.

As an example, after choosing Windows Printer via SAMBA, you must next supply the Device URI. This can be given a number of ways, including specifying a socket (socket://192.168.0.30:9100), a file, http, or smb path.

The next step in configuring is to choose the model and driver for the printer. After that, the additional printer is added and can be managed from this Web interface using the choices shown in Figure 4, below. Clicking on the hyperlink for any printer will bring up additional information on that printer and any pending jobs, as shown in Figure Seven.

Figure 4: Additional information is available on each printer.

Canceling a job is as simple as clicking the corresponding button, and an acknowledgement that it has been accomplished is returned.

Other items of note within the Web interface are the Help choice, which brings up a list of all the known documentation for printing on this server, and the Software choice. The latter takes you directly to the http://www.cups.org site, where you can find drivers, forums, links and other related information.