Portable SSH Brian Minton EKU, Dept. of Technology, CEN/CET)‏

2 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.

3 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?

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

5 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.

6 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

7 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

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.

15 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

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.

17 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

Contact Information If you want to contact me: Phone (606)