Summary
Remote administrative tools aren't a
necessity on a Linux system even if you want or need to administer the system
remotely. They can be a great convenience, though, particularly when you need
to administer a subsystem with which you're less than perfectly familiar. You
can use these tools locally or from remote systems. Two particularly common and
complete tools are Linuxconf and Webmin, both of which can theoretically handle
any Linux subsystem, although in practice neither has a fully complete set of
administrative modules. SWAT is another administrative tool, and is perhaps the
most common specialized toolone that administers a single server. Each of
these tools can be very useful, but care must be taken in configuring and using
them to minimize the security risks that they pose.