Android Candy: Landing on the Moon, with your Thumbs

I do a lot of system administration with my thumbs. Yes, if I'mhome, I grab a laptop or go to my office and type in a real terminalwindow. Usually, when things go wrong though, I'm at my daughters' volleyballmatch or shopping with my wife. Thankfully, most tasks can be doneremotely via SSH. There are lots of SSH clients for Android, but myfavorite is JuiceSSH.

Yes, part of my love for the app is that it has a cool icon in the shapeof a lemon, but really, there's more to it than that. It has a pluginarchitecture that allows you to build functionality on top of SSH. Italso allows you to execute code snippets on multiple connections witha click of a button.

They keyboard is designed in such a way that even vi users like myselfcan manage to edit files remotely. And thanks to the ability to importprivate SSH keys, I can connect to those servers where I have passwordauthentication disabled. (For example, most cloud servers don't allowyou to log in via password, they require you to use SSH keys, whichis awesome.)

To be honest, I do so much work remotely with my phone, that I'mconsidering getting a foldable Bluetooth keyboard so I can actuallydo some typing in a pinch if needed. If I find a keyboard I like,I'll be sure to write about it in a future issue! You can get JuiceSSHfrom the Google Play Store.

Shawn is Associate Editor here atLinux Journal, and has been around Linux since the beginning. He has a passion for open source, and he loves to teach. He also drinks too much coffee, which often shows in his writing.