[vox] MS and Homeland Security

[Micah J. Cowan]

On Thu, Jul 17, 2003 at 12:32:37PM -0700, ME wrote:
> >> Up spake ME on Wed, Jul 16, 2003 at 08:32:32PM -0700:
> >> > One of the long-known weaknesses in MS Windows has been a lack of
> >> built-in
> >> > low-bandwidth remote control systems such as those we have with *NIX
> >> > solutions like ssh and use of a remote shell.
> 
> Eric D. Pierce said:
> > http://tech.erdelynet.com/cygwin-sshd.html
> 
> After having been an NT Admin for Windows NT 3.5.1, 4.0 (Server Edition),
> Windows 2000 Advanced Server Edition, administering a small Citrix Server
> farm, and generally windows support, I can tell you that use of telnet or
> ssh to use cmd.exe as a "shell" for a windows server just does not cut it.

Who said anything about using cmd.exe? Use it together with Cygwin's
bash.exe: that's what the URL above *says*.

> Most major things require a gui.

Hm... unfortunately true for many things. Still could be helpful,
though, if you're also running Apache httpd and some other, more
UNIX-centric stuff. Hell, if I was given no choice about what OS to
run, but they didn't care what actual services I used, sshd would be
all I need :)

> And for those who state such a thing is not an issue, MS has stated they
> think it is an issue, and they have plans to include support to configure
> most of their services with something like a remote shell that does not
> need to be halted for upgrades. It is enough of an issue for MS to
> conceede this as a failing ("failing" is not their word) by choosing to
> offer support for this in future products.

They could do this just by allowing all configuration to be stored in
text-based files, and/or registry keys which are easily accessed via a
supplied CLI tool (not terribly difficult to write). Then they can
build the GUIs on top of those, and everyone's happy.

My 2¢,
-Micah