AutoShell - Let your clients request Shell Access the professional way

[Grizzlyware Josh]

Hi All,

 

I have been busy the past few days developing a new module called AutoShell, which I think a lot of you will find very useful! Here is the run down on what it does:

 

Whether or not to provide Shell / SSH access to your customers can be a tough decision to make. You never know if the customer is genuine or what they plan on doing with it.

 

AutoShell makes this decision a whole lot easier for you... read on to find out how.

 

 

How it works

A customer will submit a request for Shell access from their client area. This request will contain any information you have requested from them such as a reason & their full name. They can also attach files along with the request such as identification. You can define how many files they can attach, and how many different types of information they need to send you. All this is very easy to customise.

 

 

Accepting a request

Once you receive the request, you can approve it or deny it. If you approve the request, then AutoShell will automatically call out to the server & enable Shell access for that account. The customer is notified & the Shell access details are displayed in the client area for the client.

The whole process is clean, simple & professional. As soon as you want to revoke Shell access, hit the revoke button. The user will then receive an email informing them that Shell access has been revoked. AutoShell will call out to the server & disable Shell, and the client area will reflect this. The client is then able to request Shell access again if they want to.

 

 

Modular Structure

AutoShell comes with a cPanel & WHM module out of the box. But not everyone uses cPanel do they? Create custom modules for your server type easily! We can create them for you or your existing developer can, an example file is included for them to use. This is our most versatile module yet.

 

 

Key Features

 

• No need to enter server passwords again, this is done automatically
  
• Seamless support for servers with different Shell ports
  
• Multilingual - The entire client area is template based so you can style it to match your site perfectly
  
• Web 2.0 - Makes use of jQuery in the client area & has a super fast admin area
  
• Modular system allows it to connect to ANY server type. Much like the built in WHMCS system
  
• Comes pre-packed with cPanel module!
  

* LIMITED TIME ONE OFF PRICE *

 

 

Order Now! - Open Source Code Available

Edited June 6, 2011 by bdigitalstudios
Formatting

[Grizzlyware Josh]

More screenshots

[Snowman]

hey this looks great... i am wondering how it handles resellers and their clients... ie if a reseller wants to have ssh access for one of their clients accounts?

[Grizzlyware Josh]

Hi Snowman,

 

That would depend entirely on how you have setup resellers. The way you have described it would be that they order subaccounts through your WHMCS & get a discount? If so & each account has its own service ID in WHMCS, it will work perfectly.

 

If you sell resellers as a reseller account & they deal with account creation in WHM then it's not currently capable of that, however, in light of you showing an interest, I can look into modifying it to do so.

 

You can currently change the TPL file to suit your needs, and add extra fields / file uploads very easily. It's extremely adaptable.

 

Check this space for updates on that feature, and if anyone has this need (or any others), please let me know!

[Snowman]

Our resellers are just standard old whm resellers...ie they setup and manage their own clients accounts in whm...however it would be good to give them the ability to select from a dropdown of their usernames to choose which of their clients to give ssh to...

 

the google apps module that is available does this for updating the mx records for resellers clients for example.

[Grizzlyware Josh]

Ok, I've got it. I'll add this in when I have time, but the price will probably be going up on the next release.

[Snowman]

Cheers and more than happy to pay more for the update

 

also just aquick question whats the best way to change the Request Access link form a url to use the buttongo class that whmcs uses...

 

i always stuff it up when workign with jscript or ajax calls

[Grizzlyware Josh]

Well if you've already bought it, then you won't have to pay for updates again

 

You can change line 10 in AutoShell_CA.tpl to the following:

 

jQuery('#AutoShell_span_RequestShell').html(' - <input name="AutoShell_Btn_auxReq" id="AutoShell_a_RequestShell" value="Request Access to SSH / Shell" class="buttongo" type="button" />');

That should change it for you

[Snowman]

Brilliant Thanks...already getting great reviews form clients

[Daniel]

I'd be interested in this if it supports reseller accounts too.

[Grizzlyware Josh]

Brilliant Thanks...already getting great reviews form clients

 

No problem at all. Anything else you need, give me a shout. Glad to hear it!

 

I'd be interested in this if it supports reseller accounts too.

 

Ok, I will look into this as soon as I have a few hours free, watch this space.

[Vhc-John]

Highly interested in this, but not for authentication. Looking for something like this to auto-provision shell-based accounts. If you're interested in working on such a project, drop me a direct message. We'll see what we can work out.

[Grizzlyware Josh]

We have nearly completed a full Wiki document on AutoShell now, which can be found in our Addons Wiki: http://b-digital.biz/wiki/AutoShell

 

Please bear in mind that this was only created today, and AutoShell is the only module to have Wiki Documentation at the moment. The rest of our modules will be added soon.

 

@Vhc-John - Sure, I'll send you a PM now.

[pluto]

Will this work with Virtualmin?

[Grizzlyware Josh]

Will this work with Virtualmin?

 

AutoShell has a modular structure, so it can work with any API that allows Shell access to be enabled / disabled on an account.

 

Looking at the Virtualmin Documentation, it doesn't suggest this functionality, but you will have to contact them to confirm this.

 

You can still use AutoShell & manually enable Shell on the accounts. AutoShell was originally designed to keep track of Shell usage on your servers, but it seemed like a much better option to integrate the ability to do it automatically, which it can do.

[EastsideHosting]

This is cool, all though - I don't give SSH Access to my clients, but an interesting feature that could be added is maybe Shell Access for a limited time.

 

The clients stimulates how long he will need it for and if he/she doesn't give one, you can set it long enough for like 1 day or few hours...and then have to run a cron job to auto disable it.

[Grizzlyware Josh]

This is cool, all though - I don't give SSH Access to my clients, but an interesting feature that could be added is maybe Shell Access for a limited time.

 

The clients stimulates how long he will need it for and if he/she doesn't give one, you can set it long enough for like 1 day or few hours...and then have to run a cron job to auto disable it.

 

Great idea, I will look into adding this for the next release! Thank you

[mevrick]

its better if it has auto revoke feature. For example: auto revoke after 2 days. Client able to request how many days and staff able to modify their request. Thank you.

[nolageek]

Does this work on v5?

[Grizzlyware Josh]

Does this work on v5?

 

Yes, the module is compatible with WHMCS V5+

[coolacid]

Question - was the auto-remove option added in the current release?

 

Also - Could you hook into an addon option? Like the user can request SSH for 1 day, but is required to pay $5 each time they request it? If we already have all the data on file, we don't need to re-approve?

 

Thanks,

JK.