Remote pings and remote control

Regarding last week's look at PingPlotter from Nessoft, we should have noted that the release of the next version, 2.7, is scheduled for September - we were working with a beta version.

There's also one other feature of the product we didn't cover: the ability to gather traceroute data from a remote Web server running a custom Perl script for *nix hosts. The script invokes the standard traceroute and takes its output to create a simplified Web page showing the routing data. The data is retrieved periodically by a custom script running under PingPlotter (yes, it now has a scripting subsystem) and the results are handled just like locally gathered data.

This remote traceroute lets you get a "global" view of the routing to and latency of any "pingable" device, which of course includes the route from the Web server back to you. When you are investigating problems concerning VoIP, this is a very useful tool, as we have found out.

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Regarding last week's look at PingPlotter from Nessoft, we should have noted that the release of the next version, 2.7, is scheduled for September - we were working with a beta version.

There's also one other feature of the product we didn't cover: the ability to gather traceroute data from a remote Web server running a custom Perl script for *nix hosts. The script invokes the standard traceroute and takes its output to create a simplified Web page showing the routing data. The data is retrieved periodically by a custom script running under PingPlotter (yes, it now has a scripting subsystem) and the results are handled just like locally gathered data.

This remote traceroute lets you get a "global" view of the routing to and latency of any "pingable" device, which of course includes the route from the Web server back to you. When you are investigating problems concerning VoIP, this is a very useful tool, as we have found out.

In our case PingPlotter showed that our VoIP problem wasn't Vonage's fault but that SBC was to blame. The SBC Level 2 tech support wonk we talked to had us restart the DSL modem by unplugging it rather than just switching the thing off (they claim this is necessary to ensure that the device really does reset; sounds a little unlikely to us - what do you think?).

We had done exactly this exercise several times over the past couple of weeks, but this time the gods of bits were paying attention, and we've had 24 hours of normal DSL service. Let's hope it stays that way.

Anyway, this week we want to discuss remote access. On the software front we've been using TightVNC, a freeware tool that we discussed some time ago, but we've been meaning to take a look at a commercial product called NetOp Remote Control from Danware Data A/S.

NetOp always has been a sophisticated system and now works on a wide range of platforms as a guest (the controlling computer) and a host (the computer being controlled remotely). Guest platforms include Windows Server 2003, XP, 2000, Terminal Services, NT 4.0, ME, 98 and 95, with limited guest control when used with Windows CE, Linux, Solaris or as an ActiveX component in Internet Explorer.

As a host, NetOp supports Windows Server 2003, XP, 2000, Terminal Services, NT 4.0, NT 3.51, NT 3.1, ME, 98, 95, CE and 3.1x, as well as Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, DOS and OS/2 4.x and 3.x.

The latest release, Version 8 (see the list of new features and Version 8 release notes at www.networkworld.com, DocFinder: 8727), has a much-improved installation process and adds a separate remote management system that includes access to disk drives, task management, remote system features and registry editing.

A whole slew of security enhancements have been added, as has support for Port 80 connections between guests and hosts (to easily get around firewalls), support for IPv6 and the ability of multiple guests to simultaneously gain access.

Performance has been improved, and support has been added for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0, Fedora Core II and III Linux, and Mandrake 10 Linux as both a guest and host, along with Mac OS X 10.3, OS/2 4.x and 3.x, and DOS as hosts.