Remote Android App w/ SSH on G1 Phone by Mike Whatley As an employee of a small business,
it’s very useful to be able to remotely log on to the company network
and remote desktop (XP machines) securely through a VPN tunnel. That’s fine for remote desktops
and laptops but, unfortunately, there are no VPN clients available for
the Android platform to date. (Cisco’s tech support informed
me last week that they have no plans to develop a VPN client for Android
and I’ve heard nothing for Juniper firewall users either.) The admin for our lone Linux
server suggested I try SSH through the Linux server and I’ve found
it works out quite well for getting on the network securely and then
on to my desktop using Walter’s “Remote” app. I thought
I’d share the setup for anyone interested. Keep in mind this walk through
is for an existing SSH setup preconfigured through a firewall.
If you need help setting up an SSH server or routing a firewall, you’ll
need to contact your system admin. 1. For the SSH connection, I
use ConnectBot. Setup is as follows: Initial setup involves simply typing in the username followed by @ and hostname. Example:
user@111.111.111.111 or user@yourdomain.com The default port is 22. If you need to use a different port add a colon and the port number to the line above. Example: user@111.111.111.111:222
or user@yourdomain.com:222 The IP address is, of course,
the IP outside your firewall. Press and hold the new
entry in ConnectBot and you’ll see “edit host”. Select this
if you want to change any of the info above. 2. Set Up Port Forwards In ConnectBot Press and hold the new
entry in ConnectBot and select “Edit Port Forward”. This is
what will route your SSH session to your desktop. Enter a name for the forward
(can be whatever you want), then for the type select “local”, for
the source port select “3389” and for destination enter the internal
IP of your machine. Once connected, enter your
network SSH login credentials and hit the “home” key on your G1. 3. Set up Remote App Now open “Remote” and
set up your desktop info. For Host enter 127.0.0.1, port 3389,
and your desktop computer’s user name. I leave the password blank
and enter it upon connection. Each time you want to get on your
desktop, you’ll need to connect via SSH first, then open Remote to
get to your desktop through the secure connection. That’s it. You
may tinker around with some of the settings to suit your needs but the
above steps got me on our company private network and then onto my desktop. Hope this is helpful. Mike Whatley |