How to enable the Auvik bash scripted collector for remote access

* Note: although these steps will also work for the pre-packaged OVA collector, in that case the changes will be reverted back to default whenever an OS update is pushed out with our bi-weekly collector upgrade.

The virtual appliance versions of the Auvik collector run on Ubuntu 22.04. By default, Ubuntu 22.04 doesn’t allow for remote access. If you need to access the collector for monitoring or maintenance, you can enable remote access by following a few simple steps.

The steps below take you through adding a new user to your virtual collector.

1. From the virtual machine window for the collector, click onto the console.
2. Select Option 6 and enter y to enter the bash shell from the collector menu.
3. Execute adduser nanook, replacing nanook with your desired username.
4. When prompted, enter the password for the new user. Confirm the new password by retyping it when asked.
5. You now have the option of adding specific user information, such as full name, room number, work phone, home phone, and other. We recommend entering a full name at a minimum. Otherwise, press ENTER to accept the defaults.
6. Click y to confirm the information is correct. Click n to update the user information.

Now that the new user is created, you need to enable SSH password authentication so you can use the password you just created to log in:

1. Use a text editor to update the sshd_config file. Execute nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config.
2. In the sshd_config file, locate PasswordAuthentication no. Update this to PasswordAuthentication yes.
3. Exit configuration mode and save your changes.
4. Execute service sshd restart for sshd to read the new configuration.

Now let’s run a quick test to confirm you’re able to access the collector. From a window external to the virtual machine, connect using SSH:

• Mac users: Open a terminal window and execute SSH UBUNTUUSER@IPADDRESS< Accept the SSH key. When prompted, enter the user’s password.

• Windows users: Start PuTTY. In the host name field, enter the IP address for the virtual machine. Ensure the port is 22 and SSH is selected. Click Open. When prompted, enter the username and password.

Now that you’ve confirmed the new user is able to log into the collector, you can optionally provide the user with superuser access. Providing superuser access is entirely optional but if you’d like to do it, here’s how:

1. From the virtual machine window for the collector, click onto the console.
2. Select Option 6 and enter y to enter the bash shell from the collector menu.
3. From the console shell, execute usermod -aG sudo nanook, replacing nanook with the appropriate username.