How to administer your E-Smith/Mitel SME server using PuTTY
Written by Tom Carroll, April 14, 2002
Thanks to Kevin Tollison for helping me understand PuTTY's capabilities and Darrell May for his MindTerm how-to, which taught me what I needed to do to tunnel into my e-smith-manager.

Problem:  You are away from your E-Smith/Mitel SME server and need to access the command line or the e-smith-manager web page using a graphical web browser like IE.

Solution:  Use PuTTY to access your system via a secure shell (ssh) and tunneling.

This solution has been tested using WinXP Home and SME 5.1.2, but should work with earlier versions.

1.  Open the e-smith-manager administration page (https://localhost/e-smith-manager).

2.  Click on the Remote Access link in the left frame.

3.  Set the Secure shell (ssh) access to PUBLIC.
     (note:  By setting ssh access to public, you are potentially decreasing the security of your server,  
               and should only do so after becoming fully aware of the risk of allowing ssh access.)           

4.  Set the Allow administrative command line access over ssh to YES.

5.  Set the Allow ssh access using standard passwords to YES.

6.  Scroll to bottom of page and click SAVE.

7.  Download PuTTY from here:  http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

8.  Putty is very small (less than 325k for Windows XP version) and is downloaded as an executable.  I highly recommend the file be scanned prior to executing just to give yourself peace of mind.  You can also save it to a floppy so you can use it anywhere you have access to a computer.

9.  Execute the PuTTY program (on windows it would be putty.exe).

10.  Enter the servers host name or external IP address of your server.

11.  Click the SSH radio button.

(skip to step 17 if you do not wish to access the e-smith-manager via your graphical web browser)

12.  Expand the Connection option tree in the left pane, and then expand the SSH option tree.

13.  Click on the Tunnels option and enter 980 for the Source port under the Add new forwarded port: option at the bottom of the screen.

14.  For Destination enter localhost:980

15.  Ensure the local radio button is checked and then click the add button.

16.  In the left pane, click on the Session option at the top.

17.  In the saved sessions box enter a name for the server and click save.

18.  Adjust any other options you desire and then return to the session options screen and save your settings.  When you are ready to connect, just click the open button.

19.  First time you connect you will see a notice that explains that the server's host key is not cached in the registry.  Click what you feel is appropriate for your situation.  If you click yes or no, you will see the login prompt in which you can log in as user root with the administrator password.

20.  You can now use the command line just as if you were sitting at your server's keyboard.  You can also use Midnight Commander (mc), which responds to all the keystrokes and mouse clicks as if you were at the server's keyboard.

21.  To access your e-smith-manager web page using a graphical web browser like Internet Explorer, open your browser and enter http://localhost:980/ you will be prompted for your your login.  Enter your administrator user name and enter your administrator password.

22.  When you are finished, close your browser and then return to PuTTY and log out of your console.

If you want to contact me, you may do so at egor@carrollweb.net