Remote Control

The Remote Control application allows you to issue commands to a remote computer which is running this application in server mode. One use of this program is to shutdown a computer remotely. If you have a home network and use one computer as the print, Internet or file server, that machine has to be left on till the last person is done using it. With this application, when you want to shutdown that computer for the night you can do it from the computer you are at.

To Run:

On the machine that you want to be able to control, run this application. Enter the IP address of the machine, and the port to run on and click "Start Server". The first time you run, you will have to set up a list of valid users. Use the menu to add users.

On the client machine (which is the one sending the commands) run this application, enter your name (which has to be in the list of valid users), the IP address and port for the server, the local port for the client and click "Connect".

If everything works you can type commands as though you had a command prompt on the other machine. You will be able to see the output of the command if there is any, but the graphics will come up on the server, not the client.

Security: The security features of this program are limited. To connect and control a computer, you just need to know the IP address, port and a valid user name. Since the server controls the port that the program is run on and the possible user names, you do have some security. The server also keeps a log file of what clients log in and what commands they perform. The server doesn't broadcast information about itself, but a port sniffer wouldn't have any problem finding active ports. If you are worried about other people using this program to control your computer, I would recommend picking obscure/long user names. Also keep in mind that it is also unlikely that anyone else knows that you have it running on your computer

Firewalls: If a firewall (or two) seperate you and the computer you want to connect to, you will need to open one port on the server and one port on the client. See your firewall manual for instructions on how to open a port. When you start the server and client, select the ports that you opened. See Bill's description of Firewalls for examples of picking ports and opening a firewall.

Future upgrades: I may make a couple more improvements to this program. 1) Password protection. When you log in with a valid user name it would allow you (as the client) to set a password for your account. This would add more security to the system. 2) File transfer. Once logged in, the client would have the capability to request transfer of a file from the server to the client.

This program is distributed as an executable JAR file. Java 1.4 to run. RemoteControl