A Messaging-Based System for Remote Server Administration

The most common method of system administration is accessing the remote system through the network by means of some client-server protocol, giving access to a privileged service always listening on the target system. There are important security and flexibility limitations deriving from the usage of a predictable access port for such a critical application, which can be summarized as the impossibility of attaining a satisfactory trade-off between attack rejection capability and service availability. This work illustrates an alternative solution based on the presence of an intermediate system, acting as a meeting place in between the remote server and its administrator. The resulting architecture eliminates the predictable management port on the server, enhances the availability of the management service by exploiting widespread communication platforms that are likely to be accessible from anywhere, and exhibits a modular structure enabling promising future extensions aimed at overcoming many other issues of the current administration techniques.