Linux login help requested

General Questions
#1

I will admit right off that Linux is still just a little bit like voodoo to me, so please be patient.

Here’s the basic situation:

Two computers, Albus and M5.

I boot Albus from SystemRescueCD with network support configured correctly (i.e., I can ping M5 and all is well). Note: I am pinging it by its IP address, 192.168.8.2, because the name is not resolving.

M5 runs Ubuntu 7.10, and so as I understand it I should be able to log in to it from another Linux machine on the same network, with proper ID and password.

What’s the procedure for doing that? I’ve tried every variation I can think of with username and machine name and I’ve gotten nowhere.

Thanks in advance!

#2

Are you trying to remote desktop in? Telnet?

I’ve never set up either (and telnet might be in by default), but I’d gather that you need to set up M5 as a server for that sort of connection first. If telnet, I think you need to have the telnetd service running. Remote desktoping I think is usually done via VNC, so you’d need to set that up.

#3

IANA Linux guy, but I recall various shell apps, such as rsh & ssh which are for that purpose. You run them on the client computer & then log on to the host from inside the rsh/ssh tool.

#4

The remote computer needs to run sshd, if it’s not installed you can do so by running sudo apt-get install openssh-server under ubuntu.

The client uses ssh, at a shell prompt type: ssh username@remote-ip then enter the password.

Username needs to exist on the remote server and it is that users password you must enter.

For example: ssh KneadToKnow@192.168.1.2

#5

Thanks all! I’ll check on ssh.

I’m not trying to do remote desktop. I just want to be able to mount a folder on M5 so I can back up stuff from Albus.

#6

Oh, you want access to files on one computer from another? NFS is what you’re looking for, not ssh.

You could also use scp to copy files over the network, which requires ssh. In a pinch, a Linux system can mount files using the ssh filesystem(ssh fs), but that’s quite slow.

#7

Well, first you have to convince **M5 **that its behavior is contrary to the laws of man and God…

#8

How do I mount the network drive using NFS?

#9

If all it’s for is backup, you most likely want to use rsync. It can use ssh as its remote shell, and the basic command format is similar – just don’t mix up SRC and DEST locations.

NFS is like samba in that it’s for network mounts. Effective, but may not be quite what you want.

#10

Just to document my solution (even if only so I can find it again when I have this problem in the future), here’s how it works:

I don’t know what protocols and whatnot are needed, but whatever they are, they’re already in place, because it turns out I don’t have to start anything at all or actually “login” at all. All I have to do is issue the mount command with the proper syntax, which in my case is:

mount //192.168.8.2/netbackup /mnt/backup

I’m then prompted for a password. I use my regular user password for Ubuntu, and it goes right through. The share I’m mounting (netbackup) is also my SMB share, but I’m almost certain I’m not using SMB, because booting from SysRescCD wouldn’t put me in the workgroup. I’m sure I tried the mount command the other day when I was trying to do this, but I’m not sure I ever tried it with the // in front of the IP address. I’m pretty sure I only tried it with /192.168.8.2/netbackup.

Anyway, problem solved.

It turns out, I had done this successfully once before and that’s why I knew I could do it. And lo and behold, it turns out that when I did it successfully that time before, in a fit of foresight that astounds even me, I wrote down what I did. :eek: