
Ask HN: Delegate VM configuration/troubleshooting? - cshipley
I&#x27;m a freelance mobile&#x2F;web developer whose company is growing to the point where I have to pull on help.  One time consuming things that I haven&#x27;t delegated is configuring or trouble-shooting things on VMs for clients.<p>I find this to be very time consuming however I am reticent to have a subcontractor do this as I&#x27;m nervous about giving root access, if even for a short while.<p>Is there a reasonable way to delegate this such that I don&#x27;t have to worry about nefarious activity? Or a way that I can detect that someone has been doing something they shouldn&#x27;t?
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stephenr
I think you basically have a people problem not a technical problem. Anyone
with sufficient access and sufficient skills to configure/fix servers for you,
will be able to avoid/disable/obfuscate monitoring tools.

I believe the solution to your issue will be basically building trust in a
company/freelancer who can help you on an ad-hoc basis.

in the past I've solved similar issues (basically, how do they trust someone
they just "met" on HN with root/sudo access) with clients by doing basic
diagnosis via a non privileged account, and asking them to run
commands/scripts as required (either for deeper diagnosis or a fix). Obviously
I explain the purpose/goal of the things I ask them to run, and I'd invite
them to get a 2nd opinion about the purpose/safety of said commands.

<shameless plug> If you're interested in trying something like I described,
drop me a line (see my profile).

Edit: wtf typo.

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cshipley
Alrighty. I sent an email.

