Remote server management

I found out a way to use remote server/device management easy on unix. Most devices have a dedicated management ethernet port, which you can plug into your management VLAN. The question is how you access this management VLAN.

One way to go, is to put yourself on the management network which I do not want, because it has several drawbacks. You are tied to that one machine, and it is not easy to grant access to others. No one has access to my desktop by definition.

The other way is to create a dedicated machine a NOC (network operation center) for this purpose and use it as a jumphost to access these devices. However the problem is that you need graphical environment because the management tools need a graphical browser with javascript and java capabilities. If I install these tools there this machine will became inherently bloted.

So here is my solution: I set up an ssh tunnel (sock proxy) with

ssh -D someport somehost

This creates a socks proxy on my local machine on someport. Then I installed foxyproxy on my machine and set up a pattern to forward all traffic via this socks proxy that was intended to contact my management network.