Remote network management is a critical capability given the geographic distribution of network elements. Current approaches for supporting remote management are undesirable in a number of ways: they are high cost, complex, cannot cover all the network elements, are built out of components unsuited to the task, and sometimes fail when they are most needed. We propose a practical software component for remote network management communications called the Meta-Management System (MMS). The MMS is a self-contained module that runs on all network elements and management stations. The MMS is optimized for network management communications: it requires no manual configurations beyond device identification keys, it bootstraps itself, and monitors its own liveness. Moreover, it is secure against DoS attacks, and is safely evolvable. The MMS maintains a secure and functional channel between a management station and an element as long as physical and link layer connectivity exists. Our prototype demonstrates that the MMS requires only a small amount of software and has excellent performance. Ultimately, adding the MMS to the network architecture will reduce downtime by providing robust support for remote network management.