Wednesday, May 27, 2009

New build on it's way

Been awhile since i built a new version of lavalite and lava. I've been playing with the new build of ubuntu and xubuntu. Each time there is a new version, I like to reformat my test pc and run my scripts and see if there is any way to improve upon the great work Canonical does with ubuntu and xubuntu. The process takes some time as I like to see if there are any new programs in synaptic I might want to include as well as all the tweaks I normally include that may or may not be necessary with the new builds.

I'm almost ready and will probably have a new version of the CD, Plus and dev out by early next week.

Please let me know if there is anything you have seen which you think might make for a better experience.

Along with the normal changes, I'm thinking of changing the default mediaplayer from vlc to mplayer. It seems to run wmv files better.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

SSH Gateway Portal

Several people have asked about the portal application i wrote so I wanted to go into further details.

The application is a windows based single self contained exe designed so administrator can publish rdp, vnc, www, and x to Window users thru ssh without having to install ssh, explain to the users how to connect to the ssh internal servers, or setup ftp, vncview or manually configure rdp settings at the client level. The Portal has vncviewer embedded, filezilla embedded, knows the x86 and x64 paths for terminal service client and has an xclient embedded.

Basically the administrator logs into a web interface on the ssh server, adds published apps describing internal servers hidden behind the ssh server and assigns those published apps to Active Directory groups. The admin then adds users to those groups. The user can only see the published apps they have been assigned when they login to the portal.

They click on their published app and the app connects thru ssh to the internal resource. If it is an rdp server, the portal generates an rdp file based on what parameters the admin setup, and forwards the necessary ports and then launches the windows terminal client and connects it to the forwarded port - all without the user knowing ssh was used, what ports were used, etc.

The same is true with ftp, gets parameters from what admin setup, forwards port and then launches the embedded filezilla to the port. Again user did not need to setup or install filezilla, nor did they need to know ssh was involved or what internal ports or servers were used.

X same thing, and VNC same thing.

I basically made a ssh web version of metaframe web interface but instead of pushing out ica i am doing rdp, vnc, ftp, and x

The ssh gateway is built on ubuntu but can be any linux os, apache and php. But I am thinking of replacing the php portion with rails or django. The portal client piece is built with realbasic and i built a version with visual studio 2003.