remote admin

[Josh Grosse]

On Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 02:50:00AM -0400, x x wrote:
> What is the most secure way for remote login on to someone's computer 
> as root for doing admin work on the system?

See these man pages:

ssh(1)
sshd(8)
ssh_config(5)
sshd_config(5)
login.conf(5)

Regarding root login:

In general, it is recommended that one NOT log in as root. Instead, the admin
should use either su(1) or sudo(8).  The default install permits root login 
for ease of installation and setup.  The sshd_config(5) man page will show 
you how to disable root login.  

Regarding authentication:

By default, sshd will allow password authentication, again for ease of
installation and setup.  OpenBSD has many different authentication schema, 
password authentication is usually one of the weakest.  See the AUTHENTICATION
section of login.conf(5) for a complete list.

---- 

My sshd server does not permit root login, nor does it permit password
authentication.  It allows either public key authentication or S/Key one-time-
use passphrases.  My /etc/ssh/sshd_config file has these custom settings 
related to authentication/login:

	PermitRootLogin no
	PasswordAuthentication no
	KbdInteractiveAuthentication yes

Good luck.  If you can set your mail client to output plain text rather than
HTML, it would help make your next messages easier to read.