How many server you have right now? If it below 10 then maybe you memorize all the user/root password in your head. If you don’t like remembering things, maybe you have some note written on your wallet or in your Laptop’s Desktop.

What if you have 20 server or more? Than you must have some note 🙂 . Some friend of mine set the root password with some pattern. For example “sysadmin_<hostname>”. We’ll it does help.

But sometime you have so many server and there is an internal policy in company (CISA guy usually define this) to change your password in some interval of time. Than you have to use RSH in your entire server.

Your network maybe looks like this:

network 

To set up RSH effectively, get one of server or workstation to be “sysadminhut”. This server will be the starting point to RSH to other server.

In the sysadminhut set up SSH enable. Just to make sure the security is enough. Well you know what they say, the most risk not come from outside. You can get the instruction on installing OpenSSH at www.sunfreeware.com.

At sysadminhut, set up the /etc/hosts with the list of server you want to maintain. For example:
#
# Internet host table
#
127.0.0.1       localhost
1.2.3.1    sysadminhut       loghost
1.2.3.11    solaris10

At the other server (solaris10), setup /etc/hosts like this
#
# Internet host table
#
127.0.0.1       localhost
1.2.3.11    solaris10 loghost
1.2.3.1    sysadminhut

And setup /.rhosts like this
sysadminhut root

Then try RSH from your sysadminhut to your server.
root@sysadminhut#rsh solaris10

Hooray, now you don’t have to remember password anymore ^_^

Another advantage is:
1. If you have a bunch of System Administrator that manage same machine, one of them maybe change the root password while you were on holiday or sick. With this, you can easily connect to server without needed to know the password.
2. Increase security. Because you don’t have to type password in insecure telnet. Yeah I know we can use SSH instead but if you have so many server, you might get lazy:). Or as an operator, sometime you don’t know what will happen to the application if you installed another package.
3. If your Server Farm is behind DMZ (Demilitarized zone), you only have to add ACL (access list) between your Workstation and your sysadminhut.