[ubuntu-uk] Remote support was Sad but true? From the Register

[Johnathon Tinsley]

Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote:
> Quoting Johnathon Tinsley <kirrus at kirrus.co.uk>:
> 
>> Rob Beard wrote:
>>> On 17/01/2009 15:11, Ian Pascoe wrote:
>>>> Johnathon, et al,
>>>>
>>>> In your post from Thursday you mention you have OpenVPN installed   
>>>> to provide
>>>> remote access etc.
>>>>
>>>> In Rob's case he doesn't appear against this but worried about connections
>>>> to his own private network.
>>>>
>>>> Do you know if you can set up an OpenVPN server on a hosting site,  
>>>>  no direct
>>>> connection to home network, but then either SSH to the OpenVPN server and
>>>> thence onto the client, or through some VNC equivilant?
>>>>
>> The OpenVPN connection comes from the supportee's [see note below]
>> computer to the server. If you set it up correctly, you can have 2
>> supportee's sshing directly to each other, over the VPN connection.
>>
>> What you really want, is to set it up so that each supportee's computer
>> links to the central OpenVPN server (any VPS could host a VPN server),
>> but is only accessible from the VPN server, so yes, the supporter would
>> then SSH into the VPN server, and from there to the supportee.
>>
>> The caveat with this is, realistically, you'd need a user account with
>> sudoer permissions on the supportee's computer, which would mean the
>> supporter's would have to be trusted NOT to steal data, or muck about.
> 
> There would need to be legal documentation involved here. The other  
> issue is how Ubuntu-UK indemnifies itself against the volunteer  
> "fixers".  How do we know that a certain user knows enough about a  
> certain subject to provide support?  There are many many more issues  
> that would need to be discussed before setting this up and getting it  
> working, however I think a Proof of Concept could be a good start.
> 

Legal documentation, plus getting the OpenVPN & SSH installed and 
configured on the supportee's machine.

I think it would be worth discussing this at the meeting... What time 
does it start tomorrow? (Sorry, dreadful memory, and can't find it on 
the wiki)

Johnathon