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--={( CUTS - Cellphone Unix Terminal, version 0.01 )}=--

This software is Copyright (C) Tobias "Kybernetos" Ekbom, 2002. It is released to the public under GPL licence, and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY!!

You can reach me at 'tobias-at-vallcom-dot-net' ( spam protection: change -at- = @ and -dot- = . )

Chapters

• ABOUT
• INSTALLATION
• USAGE
• SECURITY

--

• ABOUT:

CUTs (Cellphone Unix Terminal script) is a small (set of) scripts that enables you to send command(s) from you cellphone to a Unix/Linux computer, have the command(s) executed as a local user, and then have the output reformatted and sent back to your cellphone.

In short - enables you to use your cellphone as a Unix/Linux terminal.

The only things you need to set this up is... 1) A computer connected to the Internet. 1a) Sendmail (other MTAs may work?) and Procmail. 1b) A domain with the primary MX (mail-exchanger/server) pointed

the previously mentioned computer... (May work without?)

2) A cellphone capable of short cellphones messages (commonly known

as SMS here in Europe) or similar, and a cellphone network service enabling both sending and receiving of cellphone messages as emails over the Internet.

Here is a small list of things I have successfully done from my cellphone via CUTs:

• Surf the www via lynx.
• List files, check available disk space, check if certain processes (apache) are running, etc.
• Download large files to my home server via FTP, while on the bus.
• Linux kernel compile (23 Aug, 2002 !).
• HTML-formatted emails using my real email-address in the 'From:' header.
• Pings, traceroutes.
• Sent emails to myself to help me remember important things.
• Written small sh/perl scripts, ...

Et cetera.

As long as I have my cellphone with me, I always have access to an online Unix box.

--

• INSTALLATION:
  1. Create an account for your CUTS user (I would recommend creating this account with a /bin/false shell).
  2. Unpack and copy the contents of the .tar.gz file (including .procmailrc !) into that home directory and make sure that the CUTS user can read all files and write the logfile.
  3. Make necessary alterations of variables in the beginning of the file 'smsbin/cuts.pl'.
  4. Have fun!

--

• USAGE: an example command, 'ls', would look like

sms-user@codewar.net ¥ ls

Where '¥' is the character I have choosen to mark the beginning (and end, if necessary) of command data. Normally, you shouldn't need to mark the of command data as long as there is no more "junk" on that same line.

Then I send that off to phonenumber 100 (Swedish tele2/comviq's code for email), and around 10 seconds later... BEEP BEEP! The result is sent back to me.

Some special characters, such as pipe (|) also have bindings that can be changed in the beginning of 'smsbin/cuts.pl'.

--

• SECURITY:

I recommend keeping security as tight as possible. After all, an attacker could get instant access to your system if you do not protect it.

For example, here is what I've done for my CUTs setup:

• Closed unecessary network services and put firewalling rules on the box. It's never more secure than it's weakest link.
• Use part of an md5 hash to make the CUTs account name really hard to guess ('e9a84' - which I will change in a minute ;).
• Firewalled incoming SMTP to my box so that only my cellphone service provider can send mails to the box (Note: I don't use this box for incoming mails other than CUTs).

# EOF