Remote Shell Service (RSHSVC)

What is Remote Shell Service (RSHSVC)?
Installing Remote Shell Service
Security
Limitations
Feedback

What is Remote Shell Service (RSHSVC)?

Remote Shell Service is the server side for the TCP/IP utility RSH.EXE. It works similarly to the UNIX Remote Shell Service. RSH clients can access this service from both NT and UNIX machines.

Installing Remote Shell Service

Copy RSHSETUP.EXE, RSHSVC.EXE, and RSHSVC.DLL to the %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32 directory.
Run the following commands:
rshsetup %SystemRoot%\system32\rshsvc.exe SystemRoot%\system32\rshsvc.dll
net start rshsvc

To Stop the Service, run:: net stop rshsvc

Security

The .rhosts file must be in the SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\ directory. The .rhosts file should have one or more of the following type of entry (each entry should be on one line):

<M1> <U1> [<U2> <U3> ....]

where:: M1 is the name of the machine from which RSH client can be run.; U1, U2, U3 ... are names of the users that are permitted to access the Remote Shell Service.

RSHSVC returns "Access denied" message under the following conditions:

The RSH client machine name is not specified in the .rhosts file.
The name of the logged-on user on the RSH client machine is not present in the .rhosts files.
RHSVC (using GetHostByName) failed to resolve the IP address of a machine specifed in the .rhosts files and a user is trying to access this service from that machine.

Limitations

Although this service can be used to start batch files of the following types:
- dir
- ls
- tlist
it may not work well if you try to start command windows in batch files, as in the following examples:
start cmd
start cmd vi
Neither the RSH client nor the RSH service are meant to be used for running interactive commands such as editing utilities.
If you try to start interactive editors, such as vi, using this service, the RSH client will time out after a specified period. This timeout period is currently hard coded to 10 minutes. In a future version, the timeout period will be made a Registry key so that users can change it.
When the client tries to start a command, the RSH server waits for a specified period while the command executes before timing out. This timeout period is currently hard coded to 10 minutes. This limitation means that the client can not execute a command that takes more than 10 minutes to complete. In a future version, the timeout period will be made a Registry key so that users can change it.

Feedback

If the user of this service has any feedback or suggestions, please send mail to SudheerD@microsoft.com.