SSH and the Ubuntu Server

[Dustin Kirkland]

On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 9:30 AM, Colin Watson <cjwatson at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> (Please, in future, do not cross-post between the moderated ubuntu-devel
> and the unmoderated ubuntu-devel-discuss.  Doing so produces time lags
> which confuse people.)

Dang.  Sorry, Colin.  Live and learn.

> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 03:38:53PM -0600, Dustin Kirkland wrote:
>> I am asking for ubuntu-devel's consensus, and an eventual Ubuntu
>> Technical Board approval of a new prompt in the Ubuntu Server ISO's
>> text-based installer, which would read something like the following:
>>
>>  ----------------------------------------------------------
>> |  If you need a secure connection to this
>> |  server remotely, you may wish to install
>> |  the openssh-server package.  Note that
>> |  this service will open TCP port 22 on
>> |  your system, and you should use a very
>> |  strong password.
>> |
>> |  Do you want to install the SSH service?
>> |
>> |        [[YES]]        [no]
>>  ----------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Rest assured that the exact text will be word-smithed by an
>> appropriate committee to hash out an optimum verbiage.
>
> Without wishing to express any opinion either way: this is an
> excessively painful choice of implementation.  If you want to default it
> to yes, it would be sufficient, and much easier (take it from me, I'm
> the one who gets to deal with the translation merge workload when you
> guys add questions ...) to check the "SSH server" entry in tasksel by
> default.
>
>> These key points map to the following considerations:
>>  1) the current option to install SSH on Ubuntu servers is buried in
>> the tasksel menu
>
> No, it's not.  In Maverick it was arguably buried.  In Natty, it is the
> very top entry on the tasksel menu, and the cursor rests on it when you
> reach that screen.

Right, that's a great change.  Makes it more obvious.

I can concede your point that adding the proposed page to the
installer would create work for you, which of course, is not my goal.

I would gladly revise this proposal to simply:
 * Automatically 'tick' OpenSSH Server by default on the Server Tasksel screen

Which would also sit there and wait for the user to consciously affirm
their selection, and would avoid the countless server installations
where people forget to install SSH and must make their way back to a
console on their newly installed system and add the openssh-server
package.

:-Dustin