How to notify for maintenance

[Markus Hitter]

Hello all,

my TinyBSD box is running fine and for security reasons, I've removed  
(almost) everything executable. One of the few remainings is  
lighttpd, to make a web server.

The small problem now is, this box needs some moderately complex  
maintenance from time to time which I want to do from the outside  
(another computer). Storing root keys and software to use it on the  
same computer running lighttpd doesn't make me feel good.

The question is: How would I securely notify another computer to do  
this (automatic) maintenance? Whatever I think of, this requires at  
least an ssh certificate and is pretty universal allowing it to be  
used to trigger harmful things as well.

Any insight to best practices is welcome.


Thanks,
Markus Hitter

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Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter
http://www.jump-ing.de/