+ 6 - 4 | § ¶World Class Company, Third Class Ethics

World Class Company - Third Class Ethics

Well!! After almost around 3 months after my exit from my previous employer (Dell R&D Center, Bangalore - India), I've now had some time to rant about the experiences I had.

Hereforth, unless explicitly mentioned, When Dell is quoted, I mean as Dell R&D Center, Bangalore - India, and not any other Dell facility because it is not fair for me to comment about the other centers since I've not worked there.

I worked for Dell's Linux Engineering Team for around 21 months. Dell being my debut Multi National Company, it was great and exciting to work.

• Dell is a great and renowned brand.
  
• It's a huge company with a huge userbase.
• And on top of all, it is a very successful company

The couple of things which I experienced at Dell were very frustrating. Interestingly, companies makes most such issues as company policies, often making no options for an individual to give a thought to it.

Though being in the Linux Engineering team and expected to work to all the fullest extents, you aren't given any resource for it. Well! Ah!! That's not within the company policy is what you hear.

Public Mailing List archives are blocked. Well! Company Policy. But still you hear, "We understand Linux, We support it."

Probably it was me, an odd, who had the feeling of being closed in a jail environment, working at Dell. It felt more to me like I'm again being ruled by the British Empire (East India Company).

With a belief in myself that not every company would be the same, the thought to quit Dell came to my mind after 21 months. A tough decision to make, but I had to.

+ 6 - 3 | § ¶SSH Password-less login

First generate a public key

		1.rrs@geeKISSexy:~$ ssh-keygen -t dsa
                2.Generating public/private dsa key pair.
                3.Enter file in which to save the key (/home/rrs/.ssh/id_dsa):
                4.Created directory '/home/rrs/.ssh'.
                5.Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
                6.Enter same passphrase again:
                7.Your identification has been saved in /home/rrs/.ssh/id_dsa.
                8.Your public key has been saved in /home/rrs/.ssh/id_dsa.pub.
        
Enter the command "ssh-keygen -t dsa" (line 1.).
When prompted on file where key is saved just hit "Enter" (line 3.).
When prompted for a passphrase just hit "Enter" (line 5.).
When prompted to confirm passphrase hit "Enter" a second time (line 6.). 
Once you have created your public key you can copy it to the server. 
        

                1.rrs@geeKISSexy:~$ ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub rrs@learner
                25
                3.The authenticity of host 'learner (192.168.1.1)' can't be established.
                4.RSA key fingerprint is 8a:8a:53:b3:1c:d6:72:b5:e9:e8:7d:c7:81:8c:6f:0b.
                5.Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
                6.Warning: Permanently added 'learner' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
                7.rrs@learner's password:
                8.Now try logging into the machine, with "ssh 'rrs@learner'", and check in:
        
Enter the command "ssh-copy-id -i [location of key] [username@server IP] (line 1.).
You may get some complaints due to defaults but when prompted to continue enter "yes" (line 5.).  
You will next be prompted to enter the user's password (line 7.). Remember the user password must be the same on the the client and server
Finally you will be asked to see if you can log in via ssh on the server (line 8.). 
If everything is correct you should now be able to log in on the server in a your user account without having to enter a password. 
        

                rrs@geeKISSexy:~$ ssh rrs@learner
                Last login: Sat Aug 12 11:21:54 2006

Keywords: ssh,passwordless,login