[Bio-Linux] Several concurrent users to BioLinux8 as Headless VM on Ubuntu14.04?

[Tim Booth]

Hi All,

I missed this discussion earlier as I was off on leave.  I realised I
had some notes of my own so I have added these to the page on remote
access:

http://environmentalomics.org/bio-linux-remote-access

The main caveat here is that the default VM you download from the
website is set with the admin password as "manager".  This is, IMO,
perfectly reasonable for a VM being run on a personal PC, but as soon as
you start playing with port forwarding it is very easy to open a big
security hole.  Automated attacks scan the internet for machines with
this kind of username and password combo and turn the victims into
botnet zombies!

This especially applies on laptops which may be on a secured local
network most of the time but will then be connected to public WiFi when
they are out and about.

Restricting the "Host IP" to 12.0.0.1 is what most people want to keep
out the baddies, but for Xavier I imagine he left both IP boxes blank
(or equivalently 0.0.0.0) meaning all traffic from anywhere gets routed
through and the VM can be accessed just like a real server.  Bridged
networking could also be an option and you'd probably need it for XRDP
but for this scenario with x2go it's not necessary.

Cheers,

TIM

On Thu, 2015-10-01 at 16:42 +0000, Dubay, Christopher J wrote:
> Would you please share your 'magic' as this may be of interest to the group?
> 
> CD
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bio-Linux [mailto:bio-linux-bounces at nebclists.nerc.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Xavier de Pedro
> Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2015 3:15 AM
> To: Bio-Linux help and discussion
> Subject: Re: [Bio-Linux] Several concurrent users to BioLinux8 as Headless VM on Ubuntu14.04?
> 
> Thanks Tony!
> 
> Thanks was the key information: I re-visited old attempts to connect to the virtual machine through ssh and this time I managed to do so with some port forwarding magic. Therefore, it works the solution using just sandard X2Go ssh access (through a different port)!
> 
> Thanks for the hint
> 
> Xavier
> 
> 
> El 29/09/15 a les 14:50, Tony Travis ha escrit:
> > On 29/09/15 12:44, Xavier de Pedro wrote:
> >> He he, I presumed that this was going to be an answer. We are using
> >> already X2Go in the production server (where we did start the
> >> virtualbox machine with BioLinux), and I am still reluctant (feeling
> >> lazy and conservative, maybe) to setup everything by hand there,
> >> since it might interfere with other customizations we have in that
> >> production server (and it took a while to have the whole thing
> >> working as intended; if curious, ISPConfig3 setup with ssh-jailkit enabled in that server also).
> >>
> >> I'm seriously considering that option, again (X2Go to url server and
> >> add the biolinux repos, system upgrade, analyse the upgrade sh script
> >> for biolinux I saw somewhere a few days ago, etc) , if I can't find
> >> another less-risky solution (the RDP to a virtualbox-contained
> >> BioLinux server seemed the safest approach for our case).
> > Hi, Xavier.
> >
> > If you can SSH into the VM, then you can use "x2go" to connect to it.
> >
> > HTH,
> >
> >   Tony.
> >
> 
> 
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-- 
Tim Booth <tbooth at ceh.ac.uk>

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Maclean Bldg, Benson Lane
Crowmarsh Gifford
Wallingford, England
OX10 8BB 

http://environmentalomics.org/bio-linux
+44 1491 69 2297