source: other-projects/trunk/gs3-release-maker/tasks/sshtaskdef/src/mindbright/README.090@ 14627

=================
= RELEASE NOTES =
=================

MindTerm, release 0.9BETA2 - Oct 08, 1998

I have done som minor changes but I might as well include them here:

New stuff:
    o  X11-forwarding
    o  Selection now works (kludge: use insert-key to paste in wait for menus...)
    o  Now does cursor-keys (with DECCKM toggle)
    o  PgUP and PgDN keys scrolls by a page in save-buffer (if there is one)
    o  Home and End keys scrolls to top and bottom in save-buffer (if there is one)
    o  Bug in win95/nt (could not print tilde, Hazeltine?! :-)
    o  Bug in ftp (only showed with lynx as I know of, since it disconnects)
    o  MTU option
    o  MSG_DEBUG from server is now logged to console (thanks Zhiqiang Shi <[email protected]>=
    o  other minor bug-fixes...

=================

MindTerm, release 0.9BETA - Sep 14, 1998

MindTerm is an SSH (currently v1.5) enabled terminal program written
entirely in Java. It's main purpose was to give the author a
multi-platform SSH-client for free and to do some experimental work
with the SSH-protocol so don't expect too much :-). Besides SSH it
will include Telnet in future releases. The SSH support is currently
just a small subset of SSH. We think it is usefull enough though
(especially since it gives us a general ftp-tunnel, I don't know if
there are others doing that also).

MindTerm has been tested with jdk1.1.6 and jdk1.1.5 on Linux (RedHat
4.0 with 2.0.32 kernel), Windows NT4 and Windows-95 against sshd
versions 1.2.21, 1.2.25 and 1.2.26. Your milage with other
platforms/versions may vary. Please read this entire text before
starting to use MindTerm.

All comments and bug-reports should be sent to:
<[email protected]> All reports of success or failure are of
interest, please don't send mails like: "it doesn't work, you're an
incapable moron" though (I know I am, you don't have to tell me :-),
try to give some explanations what happens or some such.

Information about this program, new releases and its source code can
be found at: <http://www.mindbright.se/mindterm>

NOTE: This is a BETA-release, it is NOT a commercial product nor can
it be licensed as such, it can be used free of charge for any
purpose. HOWEVER, the source-code of this and future releases whether
beta or not is NOT free for commercial use, see copyright notice in
source-code for information about this. If this product WOULD reach a
stable release-status in the future it will be licensable as shareware
for commercial use (see included copyright notice below).

Features:
    o  Password authentication
    o  Blowfish block-cipher
    o  Standard SSH port-forwarding
    o  Special FTP port-forwarding (see FTP-NOTE below)
    o  Plugin-architecture for adding other (than FTP)
       protocol-specific "proxies"
    o  Full (almost :-) vt100 support (i.e. emacs, pine etc. works :-)
    o  NonGUI mode, i.e. run at command-line without opening a
       terminal-window
    o  The SSH package can be used quite easily by itself to "SSH-enable"
       an arbitrary java-application
    o  The terminal package can (of course) also be used by itself
    o  Cross-platform (it's java :-)

FTP-NOTE: The FTP port-forwarding is done entirely in the client, no
patching of the sshd is needed. The FTP port-forwarding is only
supported for local-port-forward, i.e. you can connect to a remote
FTP-server through the tunnel. It works "100% transparent" with
"modern" ftp-clients that use the PASV ftp-command (e.g. Netscape
navigator). Older (and not so smart) clients that still use the PORT
command are in trouble, since the remote-port-forwards only can be
initialized at startup (i.e. before the sshd goes into its
server-loop) the best we can do is to pre-allocate the remote-port at
startup and reuse it through-out an FTP session. The problem with this
is of course the ftpd's way of using the ftp-data port for connecting
back to the client hence rendering our remote-ports unusable by the
ftpd's ftp-data-port for about a minute after disconnect (i.e. when
the tcp-socket is in state TIME_WAIT). This is partly worked around by
pre-allocating a number of ports on the remote end using them in a
round-robin fashion enabling us to do some PORT-commands in a row, if
however we do too many in about a minutes time we're out of available
connections back to ourselves making the ftp-server angry :-). This
could of course easily be solved by patching the sshd but that might
not be feasible in all situations.


INSTALLATION:

In order to use this program you need the java-runtime from Javasoft
or any other party providing a port for your platform. This program
has been tested with jdk1.1.6 and jdk1.1.5 on Linux (RedHat 4.0 with
2.0.32 kernel), Windows NT4 and Windows-95. Please read the
installation notes for your respective platform before trying to run
MindTerm.

Examples of where the java-runtime can be found:

Linux:
    http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux.html

Win32 and Solaris:
    http://www.javasoft.com/products/jdk/1.1/
        or
    http://www.javasoft.com/products/jdk/1.1/jre/index.html

When you have installed the java-runtime and made yourself familiar
with how to use it you are ready to run the MindTerm. The
commandline-options of MindTerm are somewhat similar to those of the
free ssh-client for unix. When run with option '-?' MindTerm says:

 usage: MindTerm [options] [<server>]
 Options:
   -l user     Log in using this user name.
   -d          No terminal, only command and/or port-forwarding.
   -V          Display version number only.
   -c cipher   Select encryption algorithm: ``idea'', ``blowfish'', ``3des''
   -p port     Connect to this port.  Server must be on the same port.
   -L [/plugin/]listen-port:host:port Forward local port to remote address.
   -R [/plugin/]listen-port:host:port Forward remote port to local address.

Note that you don't have to give any command-line options in order to run
MindTerm, all settings can be changed from a simple command-shell
inside the program (see below).

The program can be run with a command something like the following:

java -classpath <libpath>/classes.zip:<mindpath>/mindterm.jar mindbright.application.MindTerm

where:

<libpath> is wherever your java-runtime libraries resides. Note that if you use
          a CLASSPATH environment variable you might use that instead and just add
          the mindterm.jar to it like:
          CLASSPATH = CLASSPATH:/usr/local/myjavaapps/mindterm.jar

<mindpath> is wherever you put the mindterm.jar file.

In the case where you have added the file TO the path (i.e. not put
the file IN a directory in the path). The command would of course just be:

java mindbright.application.MindTerm

Note that when using Windows NT/95 you use ';' instead of ':' in the path, but you knew that.

When the program is started it does some initialisation, this can take
several seconds depending on the speed of your machine. When the
copyright notice has been printed you are prompted for the SSH-server
to connect to. Since the only supported authentication is by password
the login procedure is a normal login sequence.

To enter the local command-shell you press ctrl-D at the prompt
(i.e. before having logged in).  If running in "dumb" mode you might
have to press ENTER after pressing ctrl-D.

The simple command-shell that is used in abscense of a GUI has these commands:

 go                                    Start SSH-session with current settings.
 quit                                  Quit program.
 add <l|r> [/<plug>/]<port>:<host>:<port>  (see below).
 del <l|r> <listen-port>               Remove forwarded local or remote port.
 list                                  Lists current parameters and forwards.
 set <parameter> <value>               Set value of a parameter.
 help                                  Display this list, but you knew that :-).

 Examples of adding a remote/local tunnel:
 > add r 4711:www.foo.com:80           Adds a remote tunnel at port 4711 back to
                                       www.foo.com port 80 without a plugin,
                                       i.e. default tunneling behaviour.
 > add l /ftp/4711:ftp.foobar.com:21   Adds a local tunnel going to ftp.bar.com
                                       port 21 using the ftp protocol-plugin to
                                       handle protocol specific needs.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This software is written and maintained by Mats Andersson
<[email protected]> of Mindbright Technology in Sweden.


TODOLIST:
    o  SSH2, I'm currently looking into this in parallel with clean-up of other code
    o  Clean out the protocol-plugin stuff to be really usable
    o  Dynamic allocation of local-port-forwards (this can be done allready but there is
       no function in the user-interface for it, in fact the FTP-plugin does it :-).
    o  Dynamic allocation of remote-port-forwards, restricted to changing local
       host/port to connect to, the remote port can't of course be changed
    o  RSA authentication
    o  3DES and IDEA block-ciphers (I'm looking into the cryptix stuff
       which I'll probably use)
    o  Use the java.security hierarchy fully
    o  Priority on a per tunnel basis (i.e. make some tunnels "more responsive" than others
    o  Maximum packet size on a per tunnel basis (only one way of
       course, but still usefull sometimes)
    o  Lot's of error-handling and general clean-up
    o  A GUI with a menubar and such, can be useful :-)
    o  Copy/Paste using java.awt.datatransfer (the TerminalWin allready
       implements area-selection a'la xterm)
    o  Colors in terminal
    o  Scaling font in terminal instead of changing rowsXcols when resizing terminal
    o  Cursor/app-keys in terminal a'la VT100
    o  Telnet client
    o  Remove debug-messages (of course...)
    o  etc.
    o  etc.
    o  etc.


Copyright notice as stated in the source-code:

/******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 1998 by Mindbright Technology AB, Stockholm, Sweden.
 *
 *                        All Rights Reserved
 *
 *               www.mindbright.se, [email protected]
 *
 * This program and its source-code may be used FREE of charge for strictly
 * NON-COMMERCIAL purposes. Companies or persons wishing to make non-commercial
 * software that in whole or in part contains or is derived from this program
 * or any part thereof must inform the original author of such work. The
 * original author must also be given attribution as the author of used parts.
 * For COMMERCIAL use all parts of this program originally developed by
 * Mindbright Technology must be LICENSED under Mindbright Technology's
 * SHAREWARE license, please contact Mindbright Technology for information on
 * this. This copyright notice must allways be included and unchanged.
 *
 * IF LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE AND/OR IF NOT STATED OTHERWISE THIS PROGRAM COMES
 * WITH NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, IN NO EVENT SHALL
 * MINDBRIGHT BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR
 * ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER
 * IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT
 * OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
 *
 *****************************************************************************/