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!

PATCH IT!

A familiar icon appeared in my system tray a few hours ago and it got me thinking. Now that’s always dangerous, me thinking.

The icon was the “New updates are available” notification icon. So I started thinking about a conversation I had over the weekend with a new friend of mine, Sean. Sean is an avid Macintosh user. I am not. In the many conversations I have had with avid Macintosh users, the common theme seems to be that a Mac is largely flawless and invulnerable to attack whereas Windows computers are always being attacked because they are horribly vulnerable because of security holes. My personal experience with Windows over the last twenty years is quite the opposite, I have never (knocking on wood here) had a virus or trojan or spyware on any of my Windows based computers. And I have owned or used several dozen such computers over that span and for the last fifteen years they’ve all had constant connections to the Internet.

I thought I should check on the situation from a neutral party. I found a paper from the Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology titled “0-Day Patch – Exposing Vendors (In)security Performance.”  In the paper the writers compare the speed of response to published vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s Macintosh operating systems. The concept of a “zero day” patch is that the company releases the patch for a vulnerability on the same day it is publicly disclosed. I was surprised by two things: it turns out that Macs and Windows PCs have had about the same number of high and medium vulnerabilities over the study period from January 2002 to December 2007, with Macs having 738 to Windows’ 658; and Microsoft has been much better at releasing 0-day patches over that period with over a 60% average rate of 0-day patches vs Apple’s under 40% average.

Patches are an important feature of any software package and they are often critical in operating systems. At South River Technologies we recently began using our own Windows Server Update Services server to better manage how and when updates are installed. And all of our software packages also have a “Check for Updates” feature. Our new Webdrive for Mac, which is currently in beta testing, also has this feature. I’m amazed when one of our support engineers tells me that a customer is using version 6 of Webdrive (the current one is 9.0) or version 5 of Titan FTP (the current one is 7.11). Like most software companies, we don’t provide support for older versions of the software. The reason is that it can’t be patched. So if you’re using software: PATCH IT!

What do I do with a new registration code?

You have been running WebDrive or Titan for a while now – at least a year or more. You have gone through the “Check for Program Update” a few times over the past year to keep your version of the application up to date, but now you find that it’s time to purchase a maintenance renewal. You make the purchase either online through our web shop or through one of our world-wide reseller partners. You have just received the new registration code. What to do next?

The process is as simple as deactivating the application with your current registration code and then reactivating with the new registration code. Once reactivated with the new reg code, perform the “Check for Program Update” to download and install the latest version of your software.

The deactivation / reactivation process is slightly different depending on if you are running a server application or a client application.

For WebDrive, you will take the following steps, with the program running:

1. Right-click the WebDrive icon in the systray and select “Open WebDrive”.
2. Navigate to the HELP menu and select “License >” option.
3. Select “Registration and License Information”.
4. Click the “Deactivate” button and select “Yes” when prompted to confirm.
5. You will return to the license splash screen.
6. Select “Reactivate License”.
7. Enter the NEW registration code into the dialog box and select “Next”.
8. Click the “Activate” button,  followed by OK and FINISH.

For Titan or GroupDrive servers, from the admin PC you perform the following steps:

1. Right-click the server administrator icon in the systray and select “Open Administrator”.
2. On the Welcome tab, select “License Details”.
3. Follow from Step 3 above.

After you complete these steps you will be able to perform the “Check for Program Update” function to download and install the latest version of the program. It is not necessary to uninstall the current version.  All of your current configuration settings will be maintained in the new version.

Be sure to visit our knowledge base for more information regarding license questions, cache settings, protocol configuration, and multi-seat deployment, to name a few topics.

Checking for updates…

In today’s fast paced, highly competitive technology environment, applications need to adapt (let go of old technologies and embrace new ones) and overcome (address and improve shortcomings ) in order to stay viable.  South River Technologies has done an excellent job keeping pace with the market by adding features (such as 64 bit support and FIPS compliance) to its products and the product Road Map promises even more of the same.  SRT also makes bug fixes a high priority by addressing, testing, and releasing new product builds within a very small time frame.  The time from inital issue discovery to final build release has been as short as one day.

That being said, what’s up with the title of the blog?  Well, SRT products all have a “Check For Updates” feature built into the application.  This function will go out and determine if you are running the most current release of the software.  In Webdrive,  you will find it under HELP, License, Check for Program Updates. In Titan Server it is under Online, Check for Program Updates.  The process will tell you what version you are currently running and let you know if a new release is available.  The release notes are available on the SRT website (http://www.southrivertech.com/products) – click on your product icon, then click on Release Notes.

What does that mean to you?  In a nutshell, the Check for Program Updates feature is a fast, effective way to leverage not only SRT’s tech knowledge, but the experiences of our entire user base.  Put simply, it is entirely possible that if you have a specific issue or require a specific functionality, it has been identified or addressed via an update or fix.  This can save precious  researching and troubleshooting time. If you require technical support, our staff can very easily identify issues through log files and/or streaming support sessions at no cost, which is another benefit of keeping current  – sorry, phone support is still gonna cost you.

So, definitely take a moment to check for updates.  It is the first step in the troubleshooting process and the benefit dramatically outweighs the effort.

The Perfect Help Desk Ticket

Perfect – accurate, exact, or correct in every detail. As a society, we are always striving for perfection. The perfect date, the perfect car, or shall I dare say it, the perfect application. We strive for perfection because we believe it will make life easier. Here at South River Technologies, we strive for perfection every day. In my role as Technical Support Engineer, I want to provide accurate and correct advice to resolve your issue, but in order to do that, I need accurate and exact information.

In order to provide the best customer service, here is a step-by-step guide on creating the perfect Help Desk ticket. If you follow these steps, you will probably get your tickets resolved much faster, freeing you up to handle other technical issues. But before I show you how to submit the Perfect Help Desk ticket, let me give you an example of a bad Help Desk ticket, so you can see the difference.

Bad Ticket:

“I came in this morning and everything is down, so no one can log in even after a restart. Please help.”

There are so many problems with this ticket. Let’s start with the introduction. It’s imperative that you always open a Help Desk ticket with your name and contact information. What operating system are you using? Include Service Pack level and if it’s 32 versus 64-bit. What software?  Is it our Titan product, or maybe WebDrive? Include the version, for example, “Titan MFT ver. 7.11 build 879 with the WebUI.” This type of information will help narrow down the scope so I can begin to focus on what the issue could be. Now,  let’s get to the heart of the ticket: the description of the problem. “No one can log in even after a restart” is too vague. For example, if this is a Titan issue, did you restart the service or did you restart the Windows server? How do your users log in? Are they using  Active Directory accounts? Or are Native accounts maintained in the Titan database? This will allow us to focus more accurately on the problem and to quickly find a solution.

Here are the steps:

1) introduce yourself,

2) include as much information as possible about all of the equipment involved in the problem, for example, “Titan MFT ver. 7.11 build 879 on Windows 2003 (32bit) server SP 2 with latest Microsoft Security patches behind a Cisco ASA 5500 firewall”,

3) a clear description of the problem, for example, “after a power failure in our building, our Domain server rebooted and now the Titan service doesn’t appear to be loading,” and

4) include your location; SRT has a presence all over the world, so please include your location and time zone and good contact information, so we know when it’s best to reach you.

Now that we are armed with our 4 steps, let’s re-submit the ticket.

Perfect Ticket:

“I’m John Smith with Widget World in Wichita, Kansas and last night a Lightening storm came through and knocked out the power to our building. Unfortunately, our UPS failed and we were unable to gracefully shut-down our LAN. This morning upon arrival, all 200 of our Domain users (we are running Windows 2003 AD server SP 2 32bit with security patches up to May of 2009) could not login to our Titan MFT server with WebUI, it is version 7.11 build 879. We have an FTP (in PASV mode behind a CISCO ASA 5500 firewall) and a SFTP server configured both using ADSI Authentication, and they both appear offline as well. We did restart the Active Directory server but still no one can log in. For your convenience, I have attached a Titan debug level log taken after the server came back online for you to review. This is urgent and you can reach me on my Blackberry @ (222) 555-9033 (CST). Thank you.”

We may not have the perfect car, the perfect commute, or even the perfect kid, but we can have the Perfect Ticket!