Re: [tlug] Linux as a black box server?

[Patrick Niessen <patrick.niessen@example.com>]

On Tuesday 08 April 2003 23:39, you wrote:
> One of duties is to admin a Debian server on a small company LAN.  It's
> our
> MX, provides caching DNS + internal DNS services, SAMBA, printing, the
> usual.
> In the future, it will also server a website to the outside world.
>
> I'm not in the office all the time, and was asked to set up something
> that
> people could use in case they had any trouble with the server (not that
> they
> do, since I switched it to Debian :-) and I wasn't here.
>
> What I finally settled on was to run Webmin on the inside network
> interface,
> over https.  The webmin user has access to only one module, Custom
> Commands,
> and has no rights for editing or viewing the commands, nor creating new
> commands.  Upon logging in, the webmin user is presented with a screen
> containing buttons for:
>
> - Restart Windows Networking
> - Restart Outside Network Interface
> - Restart Inside Network Interface
> - Restart Firewall
> - Restart Printing System
> - Reboot
>
> The only instructions necessary were giving the username, password,
> login
> port, and "If none of those buttons fix the problem, wait for me to get
> there."
>
> Has anyone else set up anything like this?  If so, what approach did you
> use?
> What problems/end-user suggestions did you have?
>
> It's been a slow day on TLUG, maybe this will at least spark some
> scandalized
> discussion of how I could use a web-based admin interface ;-)

Chances are that if something goes wrong, then it would not be solved by 
simply restarting the daemon involved.  It may also be difficult for users to 
figure out which service is causing the problem, as for example a full disk / 
problem with swap partition could cause many other services to fail as well.

When I go on vaccation, I make sure they know how to safely powerdown and 
power up the server.  If it isn't fixed from that, then they can only make it 
worse.  You better contact a service company, that will send an engineer in 
case you are unavailable.  You will pay 20,000Yen/hour or more but at least 
the man will not mess up your system forever.  You could make a simple 
description of your particular setup, and store root passwords in an envelope 
in the GMs safe, and that will allow the engineer to do the job.