SSL Explorer, the answer to all your remote access needs!

vibe666

i've been using logmein pretty much since it came out, but I always thought there should be something better out there without having to get my wallet out.

there's a few different remote access options, but a lot of them are straight off the list if you want to access your home pc from your office, especially if the network policies are out of your control and unless you can justify changes for business reasons they tend not to make life easy for these sorts of things.

that's where SSL Explorer comes in.

SSL-Explorer is the world's first open-source, browser-based SSL VPN solution. This unique remote access control solution provides you with a means of securely accessing intranet applications and resources using a standard web browser.

basically, you install it on a Windows or Linux PC and it will allow you to do anything you can do over a LAN over the internet, safely and securely over an SSL encrypted connection from your web browser.

such as? Remote Desktop, file shares, VNC, Citrix, Outlook, IM, HTTP Tunneling and pretty much anything you'd want to really.

for the home user, the most obvious use is allowing Remote Desktop or VNC connections tunneled solely over port 443 (the standard port used for secure https traffic such as online banking etc) so you can remotely control your home PC from work or elsewhere while you are away.

if you have a small office you can do things the other way, enabling you to work from home a lot more easily.

unlike logmein (free) SSL Explorer allows you to map drives from one machine to the other to allow you to copy/move files as needed, again all securely.

logmein only allows this feature for $20 a month. SSL Explorer (Community Edition) does it (and more) for free.

there's even a 30 day eval. of the Enterprise Edition for anyone wanting to try it out in a corporate environment. It works seamlessly with Active Directory or UNIX too, so you can keep a lot of the user management as is, such as password resets and group access etc.

All told it took about 30 minutes to install and set up from start to finish on my Windows XP PC (Installing IIS, Java & SSL Explorer then forwarding the right port on my router) and if you have a nice beefy server you could even just download the VMWare image of it to speed up the set up process a little more.

there's even little flash video's of the setup process on the web page to show you how easy it is to get going.

the other end of it is making sure you know what your IP adress is all the time, but the better way to do that is to get yourself a free dyndns sub-doain name (again for free). it will give you a proper internet address like http://bob.dyndns.org and even has a small desktop client that makes sure your IP address is always pointed at the address, no matter how often it changes.

fatherdougalmag

Gem. Been looking for something like that. I had been using www.foldershare.com in tandem with LogMeIn but it only allows you to download from a remote host - no upload. I tried BeInSync which was quite good but, again, it's a paid service. You can continue past the trial for free but you are limited to 5 uploads a day.

I like the idea of being able to map drives.

Triffic find.

martin84

good find! using log me in aswell for a good while.

vibe666

nice one, i was hoping it would be useful to someone.

most of the lads where i work use logmein too, so they will be moving over as well i think.

one of the main things is that RDP tends to work more efficiently than other remote access solutions like logmein and even VNC, but on it's own needs 2 or 3 ports open that mostly won't be. I did install the tsweb component of RDP with IIS before, but I could never get it working, whereas a default install of java and iis and the right port open your end is all you need to get up and running with SSL Exp.

it has heaps of extensions/plugins too and there seems to be quite a scene in their forums making new ones all the time too, quite often on request so if there's something you want to do but can't, omeone will always help you get it sorted.

it is quite a long install process all told, but not too complicated, but if you do get stuck let me know as i've already done up instructions for one of my mates, so it'll only take a second for me to mail them on if someone needs them.

BTW, martin84 is IT Matters your company? I'd be interested to see how SSL Exp. would work in an SME, it seems ideally suited for such a task. if I'd found it a year ago i would have recommended it to my company, but they've since moved everyone over to a bingo/grid card VPN system from SecurID tokens so I don't think they'd fancy it but since they're thinking of moving towards a TS/thin client environment as well, it would have been the perfect solution.

axer

do you have to forward ports to get this working?

fatherdougalmag

The default port for HTTPS is 443 so you should forward that your LAN host.

NutJob

I found it to be a heavweight when i tried it a while back.

Went back to SSHD and VNC

vibe666

you just need to forward port 443 on the WAN side to a port above 1024 on the LAN side to the IP address of your SSL X server and then set that IP as the port used in the SSL X config.

axer

vibe666 wrote:

you just need to forward port 443 on the WAN side to a port above 1024 on the LAN side to the IP address of your SSL X server and then set that IP as the port used in the SSL X config.

Not that I'd have a problem setting up port forwarding but it is alot easier to just download and install a piece of software and not have to worry about talking someone through forwarding a port.

vibe666

axer wrote:

Not that I'd have a problem setting up port forwarding but it is alot easier to just download and install a piece of software and not have to worry about talking someone through forwarding a port.

totally yeah, but SSL X is about a lot more than just remote access.

if i was wanting to support someone else's PC remotely logmein wins every time, esp. the IT Reach version, it's pretty savage and is almost 'click and go' zero install solution from the client side, but for doing stuff remotely on my own LAN or managing remote access for a small business I think SSL X has a lot of benefits that the likes of logmein etc. can't come close to.

not to mention the fact that almost every other remote solution you'll find will chrage you for most of the features that SSL X does for free and if you find that you are unable to perform a particular function within SSL X it is a pretty simple process to throw together an extension yourself that will add that functionality in the event that nobody else has done it already.

JohnnieM

That sounds great must try it out..
Have any of you tried Hamachi? www.hamachi.cc it too is free (actualy log me in bought them a while ago)..Its like lan over wan.. very handy and simple to use:)

vibe666

yeah, hamachi is great and is actually an easier way of doing a lot of the same things, but it's reliant on the users having control over the ports at both ends whereas a lot of people in offices etc. wouldn't have that access and need something that works over ports that are already open.

JohnnieM

What ports...? Thats the beauty of hamachi.. Its Zero config.. no need to access router or firewall at either end..:)

vibe666

JohnnieM wrote:

What ports...? Thats the beauty of hamachi.. Its Zero config.. no need to access router or firewall at either end..:)

except that it doesn't work from a lot of offices with strict IT policies. i've had no trouble with hamachi in home to home connections, but i've never managed to get it to work from a connection in a corporate environment so it's no good to me most of the time, and i'm guessing i'm not the only one with that problem. if it worked for me then i'd never have even seen sslx because i wouldn't have needed it.

JohnnieM

Oh ok..Never did try it in that environment. myself . it does say no need to change router or firewall though..

You did say you had to port forward 443. for ssl to work how did you manage to do that in the corporate environ for ssl x and not for Hamachi?

vibe666

JohnnieM wrote:

You did say you had to port forward 443. for ssl to work how did you manage to do that in the corporate environ for ssl x and not for Hamachi?

port 443 is almost always open on corporate networks because is is the standard https port used for secure web browsing for stuff like online banking or quite often external resources used by corporations over the internet.

on YOUR side of the connection the incoming port 443 needs to be forwarded from your modem/router to the port you have set up on your SSL PC which for the community edition at least (not sure about the enterprise one, not tried it yet) needs to be above port 1024.

azzeretti

This is a dog!

I spent a month a while back testing this and the enterprise version. It is buggy as hell and VERY ropey

I'd hold out for Server 2008. I have been testing that in Beta and the TS Gateway is sweet - Citrix will have to step up, as will most companies pushing SSL VPN solutions.

Not free, but SBS version may be managable for SME's

vibe666

i'd have to disagree with you there (at least with the community edition, not tried the enterprise edition at all) i think you've misundrestood what I'm primaritly sing it for, as an alternative to logmein with RDP to get to home PC's in an environment where it's not possible to open extra ports.

in that context at least I honestly don't think it can be beaten, although I'll have to take your word for it about the enterprise environment.

LeperKing

Vibe,

Any chance you could post the instructions. The videos don't seem to match the latest version they have.

Thanks,
LK.