Using Raspberry Pi as a remote support tool

[doozeruk]

Hi All,

I think this is the most logical place for this question - if not, please let me know and apologies in advance.

Background
We have a number of small offices (3 people / desks etc) we have one incoming internet connection port and this is then spit through a firewall router to our POE switch which has three IP phones (on ethernet) and three laptops on wifi. We have NO servers on any of the sites, we are completely cloud based. Im not worried about pin holing the firewalls etc where needed, I just want some other thoughts and opinions before I start out on this project!

Objective
I want to put a Raspberry Pi into each office so that I can remote onto the Raspberry Pi in order to carry out remote diagnostics and work on things like the phones etc. without having to ask a user to allow me to remote onto their computer so I can access their web browser to get to the web guy's of phones and routers etc.

Thoughts and Requirements
Operating System - Does anyone know of a pre-built OS that has the tools that can do this already - I don't want to start making images if someone has done this already!

Im thinking of using something like DynDNS so that I can access the Raspberry Pi Remotely - Do you know of any software based updater tool that can do this?

Im thinking of using something like VNC Server but if there are any pre-installed remote support tools in any of the Linux builds that anyone can suggest?

I don't think I can be the only person wanting to do this - but good old Google is not giving me any good leads.

All thoughts and comments appreciated!

[default_user8]

All easily done, but you need to be more specific about what sort of "remote support tools" you would need. Otherwise, you should be able to start with raspbian add a vnc server and you will be able to access a desktop on the raspi and open the web gui's you need to access with a vnc client. It would be a good idea to tunnel your connection through ssh since vnc isn't encrypted(but you probably already know that). Also, if you can i'd suggest using a wired connection for your pi's. Not having to set up a wireless connection makes things that much easier. No-ip ddns allows for 3 ip's with the free ddns option, you will get an email every 30 days to renew your account via a captcha code. Or for $19.99USD a year you don't have renew every 30 days. Like i said all easily done in a few hours time.

[nrmendez]

For the dynamic DNS update issue I'd recommend using Afraid free DNS. There is a page with examples and tasks to add to your crontab in order to automatically update each host. I've been using it since two years now, it's awesome.

[gdt]

You may be happier configuring the remote offices to run a VPN back to the main office. Then you control the IP addressing, DHCP and DNS. As a result you don't need dynamic DNS or other external services beyond basic Internet transport.

The RPi makes a fine DHCP server, DNS forwarder.

You can also use it to implement the VPN, but that requires a fair bit of networking and Linux knowledge so you may be better off configuring that into your existing routers.

[n3tm4n]

You can very easily set up each remote PI to build a SSH session back to a central location using autossh. The SSH session can handle a number of tunnels using different ports to connect to the remote devices as required.

Autossh is a powerful tool, and has a good deal of documentation and examples at the end of a google search.

Cheers J.