In the business of running web servers, the iPhone is not perceived as a professional tool for system administration. It does lack tethering, the battery is limited, you can’t run multiple apps at the same time, etc. but the most important caveat is there’s no keyboard, which means you can’t type commands with it. A real sys admin tool should also have real-time notification in the background, which is not possible on the iPhone.
Nevertheless, the iPhone or the iPod touch is a compelling mobile device. The 3G access is speedy enough for casual access, there’s a wide array of applications available, with Apple pushing with enterprise features such as IPSec VPN, and after all, it has more features and more power than any other mobile phone available in the market. As such I’ve made a list of applications that sys-admins should find interesting to add to their workflow, from the most obvious to the exotic but useful applications
1. Mail.app
Why: Mail.app allows you to receive alerts and notifications, from third-party monitoring services, and also keep in touch with your team. Mail.app doesn’t have push email, but you can set it up to pull new emails regularly from your email server
Price: $0, included with the iPhone
2. Safari.
Why: Safari will allow you to “visually” check the responsiveness and availability of websites and servers.
Price: $0, included with the iPhone
3. NetNewsWire
Why: This will allow to check status of software or hardware which publish a RSS feed, such as the Status section on the iWeb blog.
Price: Free
iTMS Link: NetNewsWire
4. TouchTerm Pro
Why: TouchTerm Pro allows you to ssh to Solaris and Linux servers, and do remote server administration. TouchTerm Pro is the most complete ssh client for the iPhone.
Price: $14.99
iTMS Link: TouchTerm Pro
5. Jaadu remote desktop
Why: Jaadu remote desktop can connect to your server, windows server 2003 or windows server 2008
Price: $24.99
Link: Jaadu Remote Desktop
6. 1Password
Why: 1Password allows you to store passwords for your servers and different services.
Price: Free
Link: 1Password
7. Network Ping
Why: Network ping has tools for traceroutes, a telnet console, and as the name suggests, a ping tool.
Price: $3.99
Link: Network Ping
8. Network utility
Why: Network Utility allows you to do lookups and scans. Less features than Network Ping, but still potentially useful
Price: $0.99
Link: Network Utility
9. aSubnet
Why: aSubNet is an IPv4 subnet calculator to set up a network
Price: $0.99
Link: aSubnet
10. Inco
Why: Inco is a remote system monitor and administration tool for Mac OS X
Price: Free
Link: Inco
11. iNagios
Why: iNagios is not an iPhone application per se, it’s a web application with pages optimized for the device’s Safari. It’s also read-only, which means you can’t solve any system incident. Still, sys-admins should add it to their bookmark
Price: Free
Link: inagios
12. netshare
Why: NetShare allows you to tether your iPhone’s 3G connection, and work from your laptop, for those times where there is no open wifi access.
Link & Price: This was taken down by Apple shortly after it was put on iTMS. If you did download it… well lucky you!
13. Air Sharing
Why: Air Sharing allows you to store documents on the iPhone. For sys-admins, you can for instance put PDFs of your servers setup and architecture, manuals or reference networking books.
Price: $4.99
Link: Air Sharing
If you have any other applications you use for System administration, do share with us in the comments!
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