[Tutor] accessing another system's environment

[David]

On 25 February 2011 14:30, Bill Allen <wallenpb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have times when it is useful for me to check the environment of a user
> system on our lan remotely while trouble shooting and issue with them.  Now,
> this is quite easy to do while I am using a windows system via the computer
> management console.   However, I am trying to do this via a linux
> workstation (which is joined to the domain, etc.).   I cannot find a native
> facility to duplicate the computer management functions, so I thought I
> would write a program to fill the need.   Not to mention, I thought it might
> be a good learning opportunity.

If I understand correctly, you want to view/change the environment
variables of some user running under some version of Windows while you
are sitting at a remote Linux workstation.

I have just done a test here which might help answer your query. I
have "ssh" running on this linux box. I have "openssh" [1] running on
a Windows 2000 sp4 box on my LAN. I can open a terminal on the linux
box and run "ssh" to remote login to the windows box which then
displays a windows "command prompt" shell in the terminal where I can
use the dos "set" command to remotely view/change the windows
environment variables.

I expect that once you have this working interactively, it could be
scripted using python, but I have not tested that.

[1] http://sshwindows.webheat.co.uk
Disclaimer: I personally have zero information about this software
provider. So do not use it without conducting your own investigation
into any security risks that might affect your situation.

David