mixed system backups

[Burn Alting]

Hi Guys,

A quick question ...

I've got a mixed system of Suns and Linux boxen. My tape drive is on one of 
the Sun's and I intend to put a simple script to backup all my filesystems.
I intend to use rsh to execute dump/rdump commands remotely - so I can access 
the filesystems on the relevant local box. Yes, rsh ... not that secure, but 
the firewall is nice and tight.

My problem is that rsh rejects access to root all the time.

I have a Redhat 7.2 system.

I've enabled rsh in xinetd and added the -h flag. I have set up a 
/root/.rhosts (chmod'd to 400) and have lists the fully qualified local hosts
and the root user, but I still get Permission denied either executing rsh 
locally or from one of my boxes.

I can rsh from a normal user though.

Any pointers - even alternatives to rsh from the more security wise.

Thanks in advance

Burn Alting