A Comparative Study Of Remote Access Technologies and Implementation of a Smartphone App for Remote System Administration Based on a Proposed Secure RFB Protocol

Abstract

Abstract:In this paper we proposed advanced technologies to provide tremendous support for network administrators by implementing a secure remote system administration app that runs on android smartphones to aid them administer their servers remotely when they (network administrators) are out stationed using their smartphones. The android app developed in eclipse establishes a secure connection with a remote server running a PHP application. The app was developed based on the Remote Frame Buffer (RFB) protocol. The RFB protocol, a display protocol has some security lapses including being vulnerable to Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attack using a few tools and techniques. This research therefore incorporated a self-signed Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate in the android app to enable secure encrypted connections to be established between the android app and the remote server to ensure end-to-end security against attacks such as Man-In-The-Middle (MITM). The whole system was deployed based on client-server architecture with the hand-held smart devices as clients, providing real-time network access to network administrators to their remote servers. The secure RFB protocol proposed and implemented in the android app was compared with other existing software for remote system administration such as Remote Desktop (RDP), and RFB protocols using ICMP ping command. The results show that the average response time of the RDP protocol was 436ms, that of the RFB protocol was 496ms and that of the android app which is based on a proposed secure RFB protocol was 474ms.

SmartUI: Resource-Saving and Editable Smartphone User Interface for Fast Remote PC Control

“…Each time value was calculated by averaging the results of 10 clicks on each of the six quick launch buttons. As shown in Table 2, the response time to initiate applications using quick launch buttons on SmartUI is only 0.3 seconds on average.The average response time for a query of the android app which is based on a VNC protocol, was 0.474 seconds and the average response time of RDP was 0.436 seconds [13].As a result, even if the average response time of quick launch buttons on SmartUI is longer than the query time of shortcut buttons, it is still faster than the query time of VNC and RDP. Since VNC and RDP are imaged-based interfaces, they require much more processing time than SmartUI, a text-oriented interface.…”

“…The average response time for a query of the android app which is based on a VNC protocol, was 0.474 seconds and the average response time of RDP was 0.436 seconds [13].…”

The Use of Remote Access Tools by System Administrators Today and their Effectiveness: Case Study of Remote Desktop, Virtual Network Computing and Secure Android App

“…A secure RFB protocol is an RFB protocol with a self-signed Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate incorporated into it (Ganaa et al, 2015). Ganaa et al, (2015) in their paper did a comparative study of remote access technologies and also implemented a smartphone app based on a secure RFB protocol for remote system administration.…”

“…Ganaa et al, (2015) in their paper did a comparative study of remote access technologies and also implemented a smartphone app based on a secure RFB protocol for remote system administration. In their paper, they identified some security lapses with the RFB protocol and in addressing these security lapses, incorporated a self-signed SSL certificate into the RFB protocol which is the technology their app was based on.…”

“…Since remote access or remote connections to computers are done using remote access applications and each remote access application is based on an existing and or appropriate technology or technologies, this paper looks at how the Virtual Network Computing (VNC), the Remote Desktop (RD) and a "secure Android App" developed by Ganaa et al, (2015) are used by Network Administrators. The study further looked at how effective and reliable the uses of these tools are.…”