RE: Remote control options

From: Chris Eidem (jceidem@dexma.com)
Date: 08/21/01 

Subject: RE: Remote control options
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 10:24:36 -0500
Message-ID: <B83445050D0D6B4BAD2801F1585F9D6E0F1B3E@xmail1.Dexma.com>
From: "Chris Eidem" <jceidem@dexma.com>
To: "Joost De Cock" <Joost.DeCock@astrid.be>, <SECURITY-BASICS@securityfocus.com>

Well, I use VNC for all my remote connections and I've never been
disappointed. I don't think it's a big security risk if you have a VPN
up or you're inside your network. I will admit that it doesn't have the
granularity of control that you're looking for but it is handy since you
can run a server on unix or Windows and there are viewers for either
platform. You'll need to use the native Netware remote admin stuff
since I don't know of any NLMs providing VNC functionality.

Nice thing about VNC is that it is very lightweight, it doesn't litter
your windows boxen with DLLs all over hell and gone like PCAnywhere. No
file transfer, minimal authentication options, but for a small, fast
remote control, it can't be beat.

Did I mention it's free?

I have a Linux box running OpenSSH and I'm able to connect to it from
home and use its ability to redirect ports to all the servers (WinNT and
Unix) throughout the network. SSH covers the inheirent weaknesses of
the VNC password protocol (dsniff rips through it in a heartbeat...) and
helps compress the data stream of remote connections so it speeds up the
screen refreshes. It is actually functional (well, barely) over a modem
connection, so you may want to look into it

Get it here:
http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/

As far as hardware goes, we use a Cybex system. Really clunky, really
expensive especially for a glorified KVM switch. Why do I bring it up?
The will happily sell you a WinNT box with PCAnywhere that connects to
their KVM switch so that you can control boxes remotely. They also have
a KVM switch that will connect over TCP/IP for around $10,000.00. Eight
ports, $1,250.00 a port. Yeesh.

I like VNC. It's free...

Hope this helps,
Chris

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