Cannot establish ssh connection to a remote computer

[Rosika (Rosika Schreck)]

Hi @Akito,

thanks for your latest comments.

@Akito

As an example, this a pre-historic article about setting up a Clonezilla server, where clients can boot from.

Uff, I´ve just read the article you provided and I fear this is well beyond my capablities and that of my friend´s as well.

@Akito

I also tried to find a way to install Clonezilla on a plain Ubuntu (Live) system, but I did not find any information on that.

In actual fact I installed clonezilla as a deb package right after the setup of my present system:

Ubuntu – Details of package clonezilla in focal

drbl is listed as a dependency and thus installed alongside clonezilla.

Yet I´ve never had occasion to use the installed version so far.

@Akito

If that is possible, you can just use AnyDesk, as usual, and then use the Clonezilla features on Ubuntu.

Yes, but I was of the opinion that the system to be backed up mustn´t be running. I thought that ext-formatted partitions would have to be unmounted during the backup-process. Therefore the use of the live-system.

@Akito

reverse SSH method.

In post #4 you wrote:

@Akito

This means, she opens an SSH session to your computer and then she listens on your computer for SSH sessions. Then, you can connect to this “local” computer, when in fact it’s her remote computer.

Wouldn´t that imply that she needs my IP address as she´s the one to open the ssh session

Many greetings.
Rosika

[Akito]

@Rosika

I´ve just read the article you provided and I fear this is well beyond my capablities and that of my friend´s as well.

You are using firejail for pretty much everythihng. If you get along with that monster, you would handle any guide like that.

@Rosika

Yes, but I was of the opinion that the system to be backed up mustn´t be running. I thought that ext-formatted partitions would have to be unmounted during the backup-process. Therefore the use of the live-system.

You are correct. A live system ensures by default, that nothing is ever mounted, except you explicitly ask for. It’s easy, because it happens by default.
However, the same can be achieved even with an installed system, but not so easily.
For example, you can have 3 HDDs in your computer:

• 1 HDD Ubuntu (Main)
• 1 HDD (empty)
• 1 HDD Ubuntu (Rescue)

You can boot into Ubuntu (Rescue), not mounting any of the other storage media for anything, except for backups.
Then, you could achieve the same result. However, as is obvious, having at least 3 HDDs or SSDs is not as convenient and easy as having any amount of HDDs and running a live system instead.

@Rosika

Wouldn´t that imply that she needs my IP address as she´s the one to open deh ssh session

She’d be the one to open the first session and you’d open the second (“real”) one. However, you can also let her connect to a server, let’s say, a Raspberry Pi, so you can also then connect to the same server and then finally connect to her remote. It would be similar to a VPN server, except without all the VPN server setup and configuration hassle.
Since she would connect to a server of your choice, you could just run an empty Raspberry Pi with nothing on it, except sshd running. So, she would not connect to your main system, but a secure side system, that acts as a simple server, which can’t do anything, except the SSH thing.

[silvain (Silvain Dupertuis)]

What about creating a live Linux distribution with permanent file on USB disk?
One way to do it is with Ventoy. (and you can have serveral distributions, with or without permanence, on the same flash drive).
Then it sould be possible to install both clonezilla and Anydesk on this USB Linux system
and use sudo clonezilla from there…
(Everything could be done remotely, except reboot from Ventoy USB disk, connect to the wifi and install Anydesk on it)
Just a suggestion!

[Rosika (Rosika Schreck)]

Hi again @Akito ,

thanks a lot of the clarification of the various topics.

@Akito

You are using firejail for pretty much everythihng. If you get along with that monster, you would handle any guide like that.

Wow, that´s praise indeed.
Thanks so much. But I think firejail isn´t that difficult to get along with.
Yet I´ll have a closer look at the respective guide as it seems interesting indeed.

@Akito

However, the same can be achieved even with an installed system, but not so easily.

What an interesting scenario.
I see, thanks for pointing that out.

My friend uses a laptop which has - as far as I can remember - a 256 GB SSD built in.
Then she´s in the possession of a USB stick (a ventoy stick with the Lubuntu ISO and clonezilla live on it).
Furthermore she´s got a separate HDD (external USB-HDD) as a backup medium.

Anything which goes beyond that setup would be too massive to accomplish (for her at least I think )

But the scenario you described could be modified this way (I hope):

Instead of HDD Ubuntu (Rescue) the ventoy-stick with e.g. rescuezilla could be inserted and rescuezilla as a live system could be run.

I think Lubuntu as a live system would serve the same purpose but then she´d have to install clonezilla and anydesk whereas rescuezilla has everything on board except for anydesk.

Then (with rescuezilla and anydesk running) I even would have 2 possibilities of helping her (hopefully):

Either use rescuezilla natively with its onboard backup facilities
or making use of clonezilla itself.
I found on DistroWatch.com: Rescuezilla that clonezilla is listed in the package list for rescuezilla 2.2 (clonezilla 3.35.2-2 ).
I hope my train of thought is not totally wrong ).

Thanks also for clarifying the matter as far as ssh is concerned.

Many greetings.
Rosika

[Rosika (Rosika Schreck)]

Hi @silvain,

thank you very much for your suggestion.

Yes, I was thinking along those lines too (see post #24).

@silvain

Then it sould be possible to install both clonezilla and Anydesk on this USB Linux system
and use sudo clonezilla from there…

Yes, I think you´re perfectly right.
With persistence created anydesk would have to be installed just once it would then be retained.
Thanks for the suggestion.

But I guess that would exclude rescuezilla as persistence plugins seem to be available only for a handful of OSes (Plugin.persistence . Ventoy).
But it would work with ubuntu and some others.

Thanks again.
Many greetings.
Rosika