[NCLUG] Debian 3.1 and rsh/rlogin

[Bob Proulx]

Dave Treece wrote:
> I don't want to get into any arguments of why we shouldn't use rsh/rlogin,
> I know all those reasons, but, suffice it to say we have enough older
> systems that its required at this point to maintain integration.

What I do and recommend is to replace the useless /usr/bin/rsh
(restricted posix shell) with a symlink to ssh.  (Manpage too.)  Then
scripts that use rsh get ssh by default.  This is also true on Debian
systems if rsh-client is not installed as the Debian alternatives will
revert the symlink to ssh in that case too.  In this way changes to
scripts that use "rsh" are not needed but they are transparently
converted to using ssh.

> We are installing a Debian 3.1 machine into a cluster of HP-UX systems. We
> move applications/users around these systems frequently and we use
> rlogin/remsh/rsh commands extensively. In particular we have one user that
> each of these applications rsh to. Now, on the HP systems the rhosts
> contains "+ user". It appears that the debian machine doesn't like, doesn't
> acknowledge the "+ user" format. So, how can I get Debian to like it.

Looks like a bug to me.  I filed it as Bug#300687 in the BTS.
Hopefully it is just something in the PAM configuration that can be
changed.

Bob