Re: Curiosity about some packages missing in AWS beta 1

[Alois Treindl <alois astro ch>]

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, John wrote:

> On Thursday 28 August 2003 06:09, Alois Treindl wrote:
> > Please allow me to disagree:
> > In a local (firewall protected) network of workstations, telnet, rlogin,
> > rsh are absolutely essential for remote administration of these
> > workstations.
> 
> Not so. ssh works fine, and has a far better reputation for security.
> 
> I use openssh for all, even gaining root privilege on the local machine. 
> Unlike telnet, you don't have to use passwords, unlike rsh it's secure, and 
> unlike both it can forward X connexions.

I have been talking about a local inhouse network of workstations, which
is well secured by a firewall against the external networks.

X-windows works directly between all these workstations, simply via the
DISPLAY variable, no need for 'X forwarding'.

ssh carries a lot of security overhead, making it much slower both during
the login phase, compared to rlogin, and during file transfer (due to
encryption of transfer content), compared with rcp for example.

I use ssh/scp/rsync over ssh for communication between local workstations
and systems in other networks, i.e. our DMZ zone or our externally
colocated servers.

But for inhouse use, in a mutually trusted set of workstations, rlogin,
rsh, rcp are more convenient and efficient than ssh.

A workstation OS should include telnet/rlogin/rsh services for those who
want them. It is a serious error by Redhat to say 'only needed in server
OS'.

Alois