How do I allow remote management of a dedicated server?

[Gronal]

I am no stranger to setting up dedicated servers, but I always solely manage it myself. I might be running a server for a group of friends soon, but I work a lot at the moment and won't have as much time to play as them, and so I want to allow a friend to be able to stop/start the server, change configs, etc.
My initial idea was to just use remote desktop software and let them control the PC (I trust this friend). But I'm wondering if there's a better way? Something to do with telnet?

Googling has provided not many useful results. I'm probably not searching the right terms.

[SylenThunder]

It would be useful to know how you have the server set up, and what specific things you want them to have access to. Especially because most methods to allow them to change configs are going to require allowing them a lot of other access you may not want them to have.

 

Also note that most settings should not be changed willy-nilly, so I am always suspect when a person says they want to allow people to change configs. If you're making changes often enough to need to allow someone else to do it for you, you may be tinkering too much to expect stable gameplay.

[Gronal]

5 minutes ago, SylenThunder said:

It would be useful to know how you have the server set up, and what specific things you want them to have access to. Especially because most methods to allow them to change configs are going to require allowing them a lot of other access you may not want them to have.

 

Also note that most settings should not be changed willy-nilly, so I am always suspect when a person says they want to allow people to change configs. If you're making changes often enough to need to allow someone else to do it for you, you may be tinkering too much to expect stable gameplay.

Will be set up on a spare PC on my network. I guess no I don't need them to be able to change config files, but at minimum they would need to be able to stop and start the server. If I'm at work but the server needs a restart for example. Or if it's close to horde night, we tend to shut down the server until there's a larger group of us available to play.
I trust them enough that they won't go snooping around (not that there's anything on that PC), and they aren't tech savvy enough to cause problems on my network even if they wanted to.

[meganoth]

Windows or linux server?

 

[Gronal]

18 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Windows or linux server?

 

Windows.

[meganoth]

Ok, in linux I would have suggested port knocking or simply special ssh-server settings that automatically run specific scripts. Windows is not my area of expertise, someone else might know better ways. I can only think of one other method than the one you mentioned:

 

Add a remote deskop access to a second account on the server. And give that second account the right to start and stop the server and nothing else

The start script could simply be the normal script you are using to start the server and you could give the rights to the second account through ACLs (google them). Stopping the server could be done via telnet, since telnet by default just listens for connections from the local machine (for security reasons that is also the only way you should ever use telnet).

 

Edited January 18 by meganoth (see edit history)