remsh syntax and use?

[Victor Prasad]

Hello,

I have two servers. A and B (both hp9000s)

A has 1000 user on it wheras B has a few - 5.

I want users from server A to be able to print files from server B with remsh.

The files on B are in a general directory nothing too important here.

1) To make this happen - do all 1000 users have to be on server B .rhost file?

2) Any other ways of doing this - logging into one machine and printing files from another server?

Any comments or suggestions welcomed!

Thank you for your time!

V

[Hai Nguyen_1]

Victor,

Export the "general directory" on server B and nfs-mount it on server A.

Hai

[Ashwani Kashyap]

.rhost file defines user equivalency on another host .

YOu can also use /etc/hosts.equiv file which defines host equivalency on another host . Do a man on hosts.equiv to get more information .

Remeber both .rhosts and hosts.equiv are security concern so use them very very carefully .

Alternately , you can configure printers on server B as remote printers on server A and users on server A can print to them without doing a remsh on server B .

If the printers are network printers you can configure them on server A and users can print locally .

[S.K. Chan]

What about NFS mount the filesystem (fr serverB) onto serverA as read-only. That way it allows users in server A to access those files and print it. But of course the destination printer has to be configured/existed on server serverA.
Example : /opt/test on server B to be mounted as /opt/data on server A.
On server B
===========
# vi /etc/exports
/opt/test -anon=65534,ro,access=serverA
# exportfs -a
On server A
===========
# mkdir /opt/data
# vi /etc/fstab
serverB:/opt/test /opt/data nfs ro,suid 0 0
# mount -a

To answer your qs..
1) If you want all the 1000 users to be able to do that then the answer is yes. You can also use /etc/hosts.equiv for your purpose. Be very sure of its security implication. Do "man hosts.equiv" for details.
2) The NFS way that I mentioned above.

[Deshpande Prashant]

HI
On Server B define one user (test1) for printing purpose and in this users home directory create .rhosts file with following entry
server A +

The "+" entry will allow all users from Server A to use remsh without any password.

So on Server A use
#remsh -l test1

Thanks.
Prashant Deshpande.

[Darrell Allen]

Hi Victor,

I think the NFS method is probably safest, especially if you mount it read-only.

I was thinking about the "serverA +" syntax for .rhosts but I didn't want to recommend it. It lets anyone (including hackers) login from serverA to serverB without a password. If you decide to use it, be sure to tightly lock down the serverB account.

Darrell

[harry d brown jr]

rlp


live free or die
harry

[Balaji N]

Hi,
1. If all you want is to access the files in Server B for printing, do an NFS mount of the particular directory to Server A
2. Alternate option is to create a dummy user on server B and and everyone from Server A logs into Server B and print the files.
3. If the printer is on server B and you want them to print from Server A, user Remote printing.

If all of them doesnt work, then you may be create a dummy user on Server B and then add an .rhosts entry with "ServerA +" for allowing remsh for all users in ServerA to ServerB. But beware of the consequences.

HTH
-balaji

[Victor Prasad]

Hello again!
Thank you for all those responded.

Is there no 'anonymous' remsh?
Or way around the
host.equiv/.rhosts?


The problem is we have 1000 users on server A - who will each be printing from potentially 1000 different printers - which all reside on A. The files needed are on B. I was hoping to find something that would let me just print the files needed on B. I could move them over - but the files on B are regenerated often - and I always want the most recent one. I would have to cron something to copy many files every 5 minutes or less to A.

Trying to find a less messy way.

Hoping someone out there has this experience. And there is no substitute for experience!

Any other suggestions or comments?

Thanks again!

V

[Shannon Petry]

No such thing as an anonymous remsh, must be a valid login ID.

As someone else mentioned though, why not setup B as the print server and A as the client? This will print what you need from B instead of A.
or
NFS mount the directory your files are in that need to be printed on B then print them from B?

Regards,
Shannon

[Victor Prasad]

Hello Shannon,

Thanks for the info.

Server A has all the printers locally on it - and there are about 200 printer or more. B does not any of those printers on them. The printers are setup via jetdirect cards. I do not want to setup the 200+ queues on B.

I am beginning to accept the move of the files to A.

Legacy systems - some work very well. But when it comes to changing them...ouch.

V

[Sanjay_6]

Hi,

I think what you should do is export this general directory on server B and then NFS mount it on server A.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Shannon Petry]

Another thought for the 2000 users is to setup NIS if there are no security problems. Then B can access the full passwd list from A(nis master) and you wont have to replicate anything.

While Im used to ypinit -m, I think SAM will do the complete setup for you including building the maps from files. No reboot will be necessary for NIS to be up and running.

Regards,
Shannon

[Deshpande Prashant]

Hi
If users and printers both are on Server A and want to print files on Server B, why not NFS mount the directory containing the files to be printed.

Thanks.
Prashant.

[Steve Post]

I would not use rlogin at all. It's too open. I wouldn't use NFS (for me), just because I never did it that way.

For my 2 cents, I would use remote printing. Server A just sends the print job to Server B. Server B just prints it out. But you don't like this idea because you have to create 200 printers? Well how about 2 printers, and one shell script?

1. get a list of all the printers.
Like "lpstat -t > printerlist".

2. get the commands to make a remote printer printer out of one of those printers.
It's been a while, so I would create a remote printer using sam, then look at sam's log file to see how I did it.

3. make a program to repeat this process for a 2nd printer. Run it, test it, verify it.

4. tweek the program to repeat this process for the other 200+ printers.

5. Run the one program. Now you have your 200+ printers.


All of these printers would be in the form.
printer xyz on server A is a remote printer to server B. The printer on server B is also called xyz.

steve