New Remote Admin Tool

Dear All,

I've developed a new remote admin tool for Windows NT/ 2000. It's different from anything else out there (hopefully), because it's totally free to use (indeed GPL) and requires no installation on either side. This is not a commercial pay-for product, shareware, crippleware or anything like that.

It's called Gencontrol, it's based on VNC but is essentially cleverer because it requires no installation and has no passwords to remember.

You can read more about it here

http://www.gensortium.com/products/gencontrol.html

I hope someone finds this useful - any feedback would be appreciated.

Cheers

Slarty

Slarty, I've been using VNC for a while to do some of the work that I have to do, but I'm always up for something better. I'll be giving this application a try when I get a little time here today.. Looks interesting...

Thanks for the notification!

Its a shame i didn`t find out about this sooner, i was having to use Remote Administrator to control my NT servers. But i just changed the servers to linux, finshed setting them up this morning.
I`m sure it`ll come in handy in the future though.
Cheers.
Mark

THIS IS INCREDIBLE!!!
I am so tired of usinig netmeeting and VNC was out of the picture because the senior admin here just didn't like it (don't ask why).
Can you give some short details on how it works? Thanks a ton!!!

edit: Nevermind, I answered my own question. From the documentation:

The program works by copying files using the default C$ share, and using remote registry and service control manager to install and start a service. It then starts a local client to connect to the service.

When you close the vncviewer window, the process is reversed - the remote service is stopped, removed, and files and registry settings are cleaned up.

I was about to ask the same question about how it worked, but instead I downloaded it to play with and to read the documentation and I have not been disapointed!

I'm so very impressed with the way it works, using your windows account to do permissions. Not only that its quick too. Type in the IP and hit connect, boom.

Thanks soooo very much for bringing this to attention!

This seems to be working fine for me , and anything that cuts down the no. of passwords I have to remember has to be a good thing !
Many thanks

I'm not a programmer so that takes out me modifying the code, however i'm curious if there is anyway to setup this software to where you can see dual monitors, or even tri monitors for that matter.

In my office everyone atleast has dual monitors, with a few having tri monitors. We've now been testing this software since I found the post and its simply amazing.

One of the admins in my shop did find that if you took off all allow my computer to be accessed from a network, you can still admin share into the computer, however you cannot use this program. So you can secure yourself from it, but the average users will not know how to do this.

Also another possible bug is that its killed the wallpaper from a couple computers, simply go back to properties and hit apply and its back, but any insight why it does that??

I have not downloaded it (yet) but I do have a few questions:

1) What does the service run as? SYSTEM?
2) I see here that it requires no password, but does it have a place where you can configure one should you want to?
3) I assume it is a cleartext session. Can you confirm?
4) What port does it listen on and is it configurable?

This seems like a great tool for a segregated network/lab but I think I might be weary of popping it into a production environment. A listening service that doesn't do authorization or authentication is a hax0r's wet dream (and my nightmare). :)

As always Slart, great effort.

--TH13

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1) What does the service run as? SYSTEM?

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Yes, but the service only runs while you're connected to it. As soon as you disconnect, it is automatically stopped, removed and its files and registry entries are deleted.

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2) I see here that it requires no password, but does it have a place where you can configure one should you want to?

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No. The reason it requires no password is that it uses a trusted connection in a Windows NT/2k domain. You still need administrator rights.

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3) I assume it is a cleartext session. Can you confirm?

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It internally uses VNC, so yes.

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4) What port does it listen on and is it configurable?

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TCP 5900. Again, it only listens while it's running, as soon as you disconnect, it stops.

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A listening service that doesn't do authorization or authentication is a hax0r's wet dream (and my nightmare).

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It doesn't listen. It only uses stuff that is enabled by default in Windows. It does not install anything permanently into the server.

While it is listening, it still requires authentication. It sets a random temporary password.

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As always Slart, great effort.

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Thanks

Slarty

Excellent tool slarty. We generally use VNC, but the need for this to be configured on the client machine, and the possibilities that users can mess it up, means that it only works on 90% of our computers.

This has worked on one or two others that I was unable to get to on VNC, which is brilliant. It makes the task of getting to machines to patch them so much easier.

Cool, I can't wait to play with this. I will PM you directly if I find anything note worthy.


Again, nice effort.

:)

I have a 2 bugs for you!

#1 : I had some weird bug with my background image. On the user I try, when I connect, is screen background image turn black and when I stop the connection, the background image return to the default Windows XP Background, not is background image he had before I connect to him. I also lost my background image in Windows NT 4.0 but cannot repeat the bug

#2 : The Alt-F4 doesn't close the program when it's connect but close the program running on the connect computer.

If bug #1 can be fix, I'm curious to know if this could be use to see a computer screen without user know it?

SDK:

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I'm curious to know if this could be use to see a computer screen without user know it?

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Oh, I'm right with you there. Then when one of my snort boxes pops up a Policy-violation - Kickass-porn I can at least take a quick look and see if it's any good. If it's garbage porn I'll just report them....... ;)

Slarty: It would be very useful to have a "stealth" button on the panel that would allow me to take a peek without the user knowing though I did get away with opening my network admin's box while she was on it and closing the connection using the mouse and she never noticed it..... :cool:

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Originally posted here by Tiger Shark
Slarty: It would be very useful to have a "stealth" button on the panel that would allow me to take a peek without the user knowing though I did get away with opening my network admin's box while she was on it and closing the connection using the mouse and she never noticed it..... :cool:

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I agree - much like the use of TightVNC (with the reg hack)... I know that on several occasions I've had cause to install TightVNC with the reg hack then catch a user doing, shall we say, things not recommended on our company network.. Matter of fact, happened just the other day... Needless to say, that user is no longer employed with the company I work for.. :)

yeah i've noticed that the program blinks the screen just as SMS does. Slarty are you going to try to mod this in any way or anyone else for that matter?

If its possible to do it stealthy that would be nice, but when a users background disapears it makes it kind of hard to stealth. It didn't do that on my machine though and i'm not sure why.

The bad:

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but when a users background disapears it makes it kind of hard to stealth

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Ah, but when they call you just tell them you were playing with the domain policy and messed up - or - it was sunspots ;)

background disappaear and doesn't come back to user one.. It go back to computer default one. So it's more that little niffy bug :(

SDK:

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It go back to computer default one.

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Then it's definitely sunspots..... ;)

Are we talking about WinXP boxes exclusively here 'cos on my Win2k boxes it hasn't done this yet.

W2k boxes are what we use exclusively

It killed the background for 2 users in the office. However it did not kill my background or another. Thats 50 / 50 shot here. I'm not sure what the similarities are as all backgrounds are different on our computers.

However all they had to do to fix the background was to go to background and hit the apply button and it came back.

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However all they had to do to fix the background was to go to background and hit the apply button and it came back.

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True but it's a big annoyance! :(

i had just downloaded and first of all thanks for the source code.i hope it will work for me if not it paves a for my future developments