Transcript Presentation

Portable SSH
Brian Minton
EKU, Dept. of Technology,
CEN/CET)



The world is becoming more mobile and
computers, it seems, are easily accessible
these days.
Our information is scattered across multiple
systems.
It is my goal to make it easy and safe to
access information one might have on a
home computer.
2
MOTIVATION
Forgetting an important
document at home is a
problem almost everyone has
encountered.

Why should one have to go
home and get it when there is
a link between your home
computer and the computer at
your workplace?

3
MOTIVATION

Other points of motivation include:



Secure Web browsing from a public computer
Control over applications from any computer on
your home network when away from home
Securely transfer files from any computer on your
home network to your flash drive
4
INTRODUCTION

A portable network connection to home could be
useful to a number of people in a number of ways:

Business



Traveling business men who need access to network files via a
secure channel
In meeting one can bring only a portable flash drive instead of
bringing their computer from their desk.
Personal


If you are at a friends house and want to share music our
videos that are on your hard drive at home
Some public networks restrict certain sites. A secure
connection would allow for HTTP requests through your home’s
Internet connection.
5
PROBLEM STATEMENT



To provide a free and secure way to
access one’s computer at home away
from home.
To make this means of communication
available from any PC.
To allow for fast file transfers between
the two computers
6
PROPOSED SOLUTION

In order to access the computer at
home the home computer must have:


A high speed Internet connection
A secure sever side software that allows for
remote access over the Internet such as:
 VPN
 SSH
 PPoE
7
Proposed Solution

The client would have to be portable and
secure. In order to accomplish this I debated
between two alternatives
 Portable USB drive with the appropriate
client software and security features
 Live OS CD with appropriate client
software and security features.
Results

A 4GB Sandisk U3 flash drive
will be used as the client.


It allows for password
security when the drive is
inserted
The software I needed
could be installed onto the
drive.
 Software used for the
client was

Portable Tunnelier

Firefox

VNC viewer
Results

For the server side I used Windows XP Professional and an SSH
server.


Additionally an Ubuntu machine is on the same network. It
can also be tunneled through the SSH server.
Applications are tunneled through the SSH server in order to
provide secure communication for otherwise unsecure protocols.

Software used on the server side
 freeSSHd
 RealVNC
 SMB
RESULTS

Tunnelier the client
uses two
configuration files
which are stored on
the flash drive itself.
One to connect to each
computer on the home
network.
11
Results

Port 5900 was
tunneled in both
configuration files to
the computer’s IP
address. This allows
for a Virtual Network
Connection
Results

An FTP client would
pop up once the
connection was
made. The initial
directory will
correspond to the
computer that is
being accessed.
Results

By setting up this
network
configuration in
Firefox it will
connect via proxy
through the home
network.
CONCLUSIONS



The ability to have a connection to the workplace or
home at all times could be extremely beneficial to
almost anyone who has data on multiple devices.
There are commercial products out there that
accomplish the same thing but cost monthly fees.
This could be beneficial to almost anyone because
data is not always centralized
15
Conclusions


Throughout this semester I have learned a good deal
about remote access.
The world is becoming more mobile everyday and
working on this project helped me to realize the
benefits of incorporating ideas of being portable into
networking.
FUTURE WORK

There are many things that I would
like to do with this project:



Ensuring that no trace is left on the host
computer
Creating a Live OS to do the same task
Making it work through more advanced
network setups
17
Contact Information

If you want to contact me:

Phone


(606) 219-1703
E-mail

[email protected]