Where’s the Remote?

Not long ago, my husband and I spent 20 minutes searching for the remote control in our bedroom.  We wanted to watch the news, so with the TV less than 5 feet away from us, I finally walked over and push the “power on” button – whew, crisis averted!    But with regard to technology, remote control is an essential technical support tool.  The days of walking a user through steps over the phone, or getting in a car to travel to a customer’s site, are almost things of the past.  Nowadays, technical support operates like Domino’s pizza delivery service;  if I (the Technical Support Engineer) can’t get your problem fixed in under 30 minutes, a link will be provided allowing me access to  fix the problem remotely.

Here at South River Technologies, our Support and Development Engineers use remote control software daily to solve customer problems; issues ranging from, “I can’t activate the license on my Titan MFT Server,”  to, ” My WebDrive will not connect to my WebDAV server.”  With SRT having customers all over the world, remote access saves us a bundle in long distance calls,  and there is no need to travel to a customer site. As long as we have the Internet, we can provide “on site” support.  I can’t describe the anxiety that washes over me when someone declines remote control access to their site.  You mean I actually have to walk you through this over the phone or write instructions? Someone please call the Police!

So, some may argue that remote control devices have made us lazy because now we sit back and watch someone else do the work, but aren’t lazy people the most inventive?   Think about it.

A Recipe for SFTP

Ingredients:

• Server (Select your own hardware; recommend Server class machine)
• Operating System (recommend Windows 2003, 2008 various flavors)
• *Licensed operational Titan Enterprise or MFT Server (other SFTP Servers can be used but not as flavorful as Titan)
• Port 22
• Client SFTP software (we like to use WebDrive; Mac or Windows flavor)
• 2 Host Key Pair, 1 for Server and 1 for Client
• 1 Password for Private Key pair (required for Titan Server)

*Note if you attempt to use single Licensed Titan Server in the same recipe, you will receive bad results

Preparation Time: 1 – 2 hours

Prep:

On your Server class machine, install your Operating system with either Windows 2003 or 2008 flavor, some people even like it with Windows XP.

Refer to: our Titan Host Key Quick Start Guide (Steps 1 – 7) for detailed instructions on preparing your Titan Server with SFTP.

Now that your Titan Server is ready, now you can add SFTP to make it incredible.

To make SFTP (SSH’s Secure File Transfer Protocol) on this server select this check box and choose the port number using the up/down arrows. Choose the host key set by using the drop down arrow. To use SFTP services, you will need a host key pair that will be used by the Titan FTP Server. Use the Host Key Management utility to either create a new host key pair to be used by the Titan FTP Server or to import an existing host key pair from an external file set. Once you have created a host key pair, select it from the list and then type the password associated with the host key.

*Port 22 is reserved for SSH (Secure Shell)/SFTP and is the default/recommended port.

Depending on your taste, choose your Host Key Type flavor: select a DSA host keys (must be 1024 bits in length), or  RSA keys, which do not have this restriction and can range from 512 bits in length to 4096 bits in length. A longer key length provides better taste, but takes longer to serve.  Shorter keys aren’t as good, but you can serve it quickly.

Now add the finishing touches to your Titan server, and then you are ready to serve your guests.

Before your guests can experience your server, they must use a password or a host key.  You’ll have to add the final component to the server to make this easier for your guests.

We recommend you support both Password Authentication and Public Key Authentication (meaning that client can use either Password OR Public Key Authentication), then select the Allow Trusted Host Keys option and deselect the Require Trusted Host Keys option, but depending on your taste, select what you like.

Before serving your guests, navigate to the guest’s public key filename and click.

* Note that the client host key pair will be created by each individual client.

They will then need to export their Public Host Key in SSH2 or OpenSSH format and send that .pub file to the Titan Administrator so that it can be imported into the Titan Host Key Database.

Make sure your server is started prior to serving.  Enjoy!

Got Mac?

Hey all you MAC users. How would you like to easily access and transfer files over your FTP, SFTP, FTPS or WebDAV Servers? What would you say if I told you you could effortlessly mount a drive to connect to one or all of these servers? Well, now you can with WebDrive for MAC v2.0.

Unlike a typical FTP client, WebDrive allows you to open and edit server-based files without the additional step of downloading the file. Using the simple WebDrive site profile manager, you can configure WebDrive to mount a remote FTP server as a local file system device. By connecting through a ‘virtual’ device, there is no need to learn a separate FTP client interface. You access and edit files on the server the same way that you interact with files on your local Mac.

For more informaton visit us online at: http://www.southrivertech.com/products/webdrive/mac/index.html.

Or email us at:  sales@southrivertech.com

Tell Me How…

…A Note about Technical Writing and Help Documentation:

“Technical writing is the art, craft, practice, or problem of translating
that which is logical into that which is grammatical. Technical writing
forms a bridge between the logical (the primarily binary concepts understood by computers, robots, lawyers) and the illogical (the haphazard, inconsistent concepts misunderstood carbon-based life forms, highly intelligent computers, lawyers) via the medium of the grammatical, the haphazardly logical system incomprehensible to both. The practice of technical writing presupposes that you, the illogical, actually want to learn about the logical subject, which of course is in all cases false. This basis in a false presupposition makes technical writing a pursuit typically favored by those with arts degrees from obscure universities.”

–The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Of course, being a Technical Writer, I found the preceding quote to be very entertaining! And while this quote may strike a chord, here at SRT, we’ve tried very hard to make sure that using our products is a breeze, whether you’re configuring LDAP, ODBC, SFTP, or FTP/S. We have a large repository of help documentation and add to our Knowledgebase frequently. If you need help connecting your WebDrive FTP client to a Sharepoint server, or want detailed information about how to configure Microsoft clustering services, we have step-by-step guides available on the South River Technologies’ website. If you have a unique Titan MFT Server configuration, you can find troubleshooting tips in our Knowledgebase. And we want to hear from you! Please tell us how we can serve you better.  We want to get you up and running as smoothly and stress-free as possible. We love our products. We think they’re easy to configure and use. And, if we can do anything to make it easier for you, please, let us know.

By the way, I have a B.A. degree from SUNYA, double major in Communications & Theatre. Very funny, Doug Adams, very funny.