CentOS - Jun 2008 - SME on CentOS, telnet and MySQL

After failing to install on two different machines that were running 
Windows, I realized that one machine had a bad hard-drive, and the other 
bad memory. So I've collected the good parts into one machine and 
installed CentOS with SME. This was the fastest install of Linux I have 
every seen, 15 minutes done, configured, and running, web and email 
server. It is a very secure config, no GUI -- just a server.

One problem: MySQL and Telnet can't be accessed remotely, ports not 
open, allow/deny files, something. I've searched the internet and hacked 
around for hours, can't get these services to work remotely.

Anyone here have experience with the SME/e-smith admin tools?

By default SME doesn't install Telnet on port 23, only ssh on port 22. 
So I ran a yum install for telnet, manually started it. I get a response 
from port 23, but connection refused.

Mysql does come installed with SME, however local connections only. I 
can run mysql client on the command line on the SME.CentOS server, 
queries work fine, but not remotely.

I am using Windows Vista as a  client workstation, Programmer Studio 
(Whisper Technology) that requires a generic telnet server, and the 
freeware version of Toad to connect to the MySQL server.


Any help to weaken the security on SME to allow remote telnet and MySQL 
connections will be very much appreciated!

-- 
Michael Anderson,
J3k Solutions
Sr.Systems Programmer/Analyst
832.515.3868

Michael wrote:
> After failing to install on two different machines that were running 
> Windows, I realized that one machine had a bad hard-drive, and the other 
> bad memory. So I've collected the good parts into one machine and 
> installed CentOS with SME. This was the fastest install of Linux I have 
> every seen, 15 minutes done, configured, and running, web and email 
> server. It is a very secure config, no GUI -- just a server.
> 
> One problem: MySQL and Telnet can't be accessed remotely, ports not 
> open, allow/deny files, something. I've searched the internet and
hacked
> around for hours, can't get these services to work remotely.
> 
> Anyone here have experience with the SME/e-smith admin tools?
> 
> By default SME doesn't install Telnet on port 23, only ssh on port 22. 
> So I ran a yum install for telnet, manually started it. I get a response 
> from port 23, but connection refused.
> 
> Mysql does come installed with SME, however local connections only. I 
> can run mysql client on the command line on the SME.CentOS server, 
> queries work fine, but not remotely.
> 
> I am using Windows Vista as a  client workstation, Programmer Studio 
> (Whisper Technology) that requires a generic telnet server, and the 
> freeware version of Toad to connect to the MySQL server.
> 
> 
> Any help to weaken the security on SME to allow remote telnet and MySQL 
> connections will be very much appreciated!
> 
SME server has their own lists for their products ... just keep in mind 
that since they have modified their products, information you get that 
is accurate for centos may not be accurate for SME server.

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Johnny Hughes wrote:
> Michael wrote:
>> After failing to install on two different machines that were running 
>> Windows, I realized that one machine had a bad hard-drive, and the 
>> other bad memory. So I've collected the good parts into one machine
>> and installed CentOS with SME. This was the fastest install of Linux 
>> I have every seen, 15 minutes done, configured, and running, web and 
>> email server. It is a very secure config, no GUI -- just a server.
>>
>> One problem: MySQL and Telnet can't be accessed remotely, ports not
>> open, allow/deny files, something. I've searched the internet and 
>> hacked around for hours, can't get these services to work remotely.
>>
>> Anyone here have experience with the SME/e-smith admin tools?
>>
>> By default SME doesn't install Telnet on port 23, only ssh on port 
>> 22. So I ran a yum install for telnet, manually started it. I get a 
>> response from port 23, but connection refused.
>>
>> Mysql does come installed with SME, however local connections only. I 
>> can run mysql client on the command line on the SME.CentOS server, 
>> queries work fine, but not remotely.
>>
>> I am using Windows Vista as a  client workstation, Programmer Studio 
>> (Whisper Technology) that requires a generic telnet server, and the 
>> freeware version of Toad to connect to the MySQL server.
>>
>>
>> Any help to weaken the security on SME to allow remote telnet and 
>> MySQL connections will be very much appreciated!
>>
>
> SME server has their own lists for their products ... just keep in 
> mind that since they have modified their products, information you get 
> that is accurate for centos may not be accurate for SME server.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
>   
I have found that with SME support, more than 60% of the standard stuff 
is managed by SME itself, so it could be best to ask this on their forum?

-- 

Kind Regards
Rudi Ahlers
CEO, SoftDux

Web:   http://www.SoftDux.com
Check out my technical blog, http://blog.softdux.com for Linux or other
technical stuff, or visit http://www.WebHostingTalk.co.za for Web Hosting stuff

Michael wrote:
> After failing to install on two different machines that were running 
> Windows, I realized that one machine had a bad hard-drive, and the other 
> bad memory. So I've collected the good parts into one machine and 
> installed CentOS with SME. This was the fastest install of Linux I have 
> every seen, 15 minutes done, configured, and running, web and email 
> server. It is a very secure config, no GUI -- just a server.
> 
> One problem: MySQL and Telnet can't be accessed remotely, ports not 
> open, allow/deny files, something. I've searched the internet and
hacked
> around for hours, can't get these services to work remotely.
> 
> Anyone here have experience with the SME/e-smith admin tools?
While the code is mostly the same as the underlying Centos, the 
configuration and tools are so different that the question won't even 
make sense to Centos users.  SME server does all normal administration 
through web forms that store your entries in a database, then use perl 
scripts to rewrite the config files, and the forms often combine several 
concepts for simplicity.  For things that need network security, the 
scripts often rewrite iptables settings and hosts.allow and hosts.deny 
files - and to change it you need to adjust the perl templates that 
build these files.
> By default SME doesn't install Telnet on port 23, only ssh on port 22. 
> So I ran a yum install for telnet, manually started it. I get a response 
> from port 23, but connection refused.
You probably need to add something to the templates that build the 
iptables and hosts allow/deny files.
> Mysql does come installed with SME, however local connections only. I 
> can run mysql client on the command line on the SME.CentOS server, 
> queries work fine, but not remotely.
Same here.
> I am using Windows Vista as a  client workstation, Programmer Studio 
> (Whisper Technology) that requires a generic telnet server, and the 
> freeware version of Toad to connect to the MySQL server.
Can it use putty or something with ssh instead?
> Any help to weaken the security on SME to allow remote telnet and MySQL 
> connections will be very much appreciated!
It's probably easier to start with a stock Centos than to customize an 
already heavily customized appliance-like distribution, but perhaps 
someone has already done it.  Look through the contributed downloads on 
http://www.contribs.org and ask on their forums.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com