Re: SSH with a central host list?

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, John Horne wrote:
> Our networking team are using secure shell to access their network
> devices from Windows XP laptops. However, at present there are over 400
> devices and each member of the team has their own copy of those devices
> DNS name and/or IP address in a list. The problem is that whenever a
> device is changed (IP address), added or removed then each member of the
> team has to be told and update their list. This does not work well!
>
> I have been asked to see if there is a secure shell client, be it open
> source, shareware, commercial or whatever, that supports some form of
> 'central host list'. Ideally this would be just a text list of DNS names
> held on a central file store. That way the team only has to update one
> list and the change is then immediately accessible to all team members.

Don't sure that I really understand your question.

If only IP addresses change then you can use simple DNS server to
store domain -> ip mapping (both domain names and IPs can be private,
i.e. device1.localdomain. and 10.0.1.5). In fact, it is exactly the
purpose of DNS as opposed to hosts files.

If some other config info has to be changable (e.g., ssh ports) then
you can share your config using configuration file which could be
updated (e.g., you can download it from some internal http server on
each boot, or use a file on some SMB share). The name of the
configuration file is different for each ssh client...

-- 
Regards,
ASK