Basic Product Information

This software installs a service on computers running Microsoft Windows operating systems. It enables access to remote computers in that way that processes can be placed remotely running in a user's context. This functionality is usually standard on UNIX flavored systems but is not supported by Microsoft. It therefore is a powerful tool for starting processes remotely within a Windows environment. Besides interoperability between UNIX and Windows clusters it provides Windows centric process managment for highest security using session keys.

Availability

The software is available as a self extracting InstallShield executable. Installation and/or configuration requires Administrative privileges.
Please go to the download page to get an evaluation copy. Registration information is here .

Installation

During the Installshield Installation you are required to point to a location where the software will be stored. This procedure will be monitored and keys are inserted into the registry. If you click on install in the last dialog window, the service will be started immediately. To allow the startup of processes from Unix machines, you have to use the configure executable, which will be stored in installation directory (see configuration). This nifty tool will configure a trustbase consisting of a set of usernames and IP addresses. Incoming requests will be matched with the trustbase and access will be granted if a match has been found. Otherwise, access will be denied. Thus it is possible to set tight securities for starting up processes.

Functionality

The WINRSHD software provides a service for Windows NT/2000/XP or Windows 9X machines, which enables a remote user to start (console) programs on the executing machine. This version is BSD compliant and therefore Stdout and Stderr are redirected to the calling process (the rsh client). Under Windows NT, a process will be placed by the RSHD/SERVICE under a user account and will run in its context. In order to do so, a password has to be provided when firing up a process by a different OS than Windows NT. The password will be stored encrypted.

Special Features

Incoming calls which contain %variable_name% or $VAR primitives will be translated to use their expanded environment variables. If no match is found, the registry is checked, too.

Important for PVM USERS:

Especially when using this service with PVM, the command

pvm> add hostname

is now sufficient to add any type of new host. A Daemon location is no longer needed and should make the process of virtual machine extension more smoothly.
 

WINRSHD - Version 3.x

  • provides a [-p password] option to allow configuration via script files. If this parameter is not given, a prompt for the password will appear.
  • provides domain support. configure -add remote_user \\domain\user iplist will then place a process under the domain concept.
  • includes rsh.exe into package (will be needed at least when performing delegation)
  • Implements a delegation method. This allows remote process creation without configuration. A user logged on at a Windows NT Workstation can place processes on remote hosts, without being configured. This will work within an NT cluster only.
  • Provides an additional client / server installation. The client installation will keep a trust base data locally, so that individual configurations or trust bases can be set, depending on the host. A server type will query the information from the Domain Server